Unity

Chapter 36

"Launch battleships," I commanded. "Prep fighters and cruisers for launch. Have they spotted us yet?"

"Negative sir," replied the navigations officer, Lt. Young.

"Sir, we just received a message from Narrisal," said Lt. Sanchez. "Message reads, 'Nine minutes and thirty seconds. Beat that, Commander Ryan.'" The message was from the acting admiral of the Tuleeririan fleet, Commander Vaehil. We had a little wager on who could defeat their assigned Zrynt fleet faster. Shahae was still said to be recovering, and with the offensive against the Zrynt getting underway, her second in command was selected to lead the fight until she was fit to lead again. It had been two weeks since our return from the dead and that time had not been spent idling. We were assisting with the training of the new Tuleeririan fleet, as well as assisting in combat sorties to clear several star systems that were deemed critical in creating a defensive zone around Narrisal.

Most systems we had entered only had a handful of Zrynt ships, and even then, most of those were nothing more than pickets, sent to monitor Narrisal for the Zrynt. For some unknown reason, two of the systems we came across had a much larger Zrynt presence. Commander Vaehil had been tasked with recovering one system and my fleet the other. Commander Vaehil and I had hit it off from the beginning. He was young and gradually grew to appreciate my subtle humor. The current challenge came about after we had spent some time in witty banter, but as bantering tends to do, it escalated into a full-blown challenge. No challenge was fun unless something was to be gained, or in this case lost, and since I had nothing of value to give, the loser was going to shave their head. It may be considered juvenile, but it gave proper incentive not to lose the wager. Commander Vaehil had completed his objective in less than ten minutes, which was an impressive feat considering the same task would have been much more costly a month ago. My fleet had just arrived at our target destination, and it was my turn to put Commander Vaehil into his proper place.

The system we were liberating from Zrynt hands was seemingly insignificant. There were no habitable planets, and in fact, the only planet orbiting the star was a medium sized gas giant. The only other thing of note was a sparse ring of asteroids, but we still couldn't figure out why the Zrynt had such a stronger garrison here. It was not close to the normal subspace routes the Zrynt were using and seemingly had nothing to offer. Our secondary objective on this mission was to investigate the Zrynt's interest, after having removed them.

The Zrynt fleet we were about to engage consisted of four destroyers and fifty scout vessels. The scouts posed no immediate threat, but standard operating procedures required us to eliminate them so they couldn't escape to report our presence. The four destroyers were a moderate threat, but one that could easily be dealt with if we could take them out before their fighters launched. This meant we had a two-minute window to do as much damage as possible. I mentally went over the battle plan again. The battleships finally received their jump drive upgrades, so that made them much more versatile in the surprise attacks that worked so well against the Zrynt. Commander Turner was leading the battleships to hunt down any scout ships that attempted to flee, while the fighters and cruisers would launch the moment we jumped to support the Unity in destroying the ships quickly. When I received confirmation that the fleet was ready, I gave the orders to engage.

I felt the familiar pull of the jump drives as we entered the system. Shorter jumps put far less strain on the body as the longer jumps, which was why we were mustering our forces outside this solar system so the crew wouldn't be trying to engage the enemy after a long jump. The eight battleships jumped the same time as the Unity, and they surrounded the scouts, laying waste to the surprised ships. I discovered that the larger the ship the quicker the reaction time, so our first target was the largest of the destroyers. We spent thirty seconds firing every weapon available as quickly as possible while fighters and cruisers flooded out of the Unity. Everyone had been briefed on the battle plan, so I let the crew work without dictating unnecessary instructions to them. Watching the Zrynt ships get smashed into debris no longer held the same satisfaction. Our initial attack didn't completely destroy the destroyer, so the cruisers took over, now that the enemy ship was disabled.