In the Black Spaces

001: Striking Distance

The SNV Cobra swung hard to port, its burnished, brass-metal hull glinting against the far light of the system's blue giant star. A Belisarius-Class cataphract, the warship measured a full kilometre from bow to stern, with a bulky cuboid of a body, narrowing at the front to a shovel-like nose, and with a clump of powerful atomic engines boiling in the rear housing.

It cleared the storm-skied, charcoal sphere of Crassus IV, and the gun batteries along both flanks bristled into life, torpedo bays sliding open on the lower bombardment decks. Sleek sensor clusters dotted along the heavily armoured exterior reached out into the void, scanning for threats. Its engines flared with an acceleration burn, hurling the Cobra into the heart of the system.

On the bridge, Lt. Commander Wraia Clay watched the manoeuvres unfold.

She sat in the command chair, her throne, her place of complete power and responsibility. Legs crossed, elbows propped against the armrests and with her fingers steepled, she let the gaze of her crystal-grey eyes shift from position to position around the bridge. Her Sol Navy Uniform of steel blue jacket and trousers was immaculately pressed, fitted with military precision to her slim frame, and a crisp ponytail of brown hair protruded from beneath her high-peaked cap.

The view screen ahead of her showed a lot of darkness, a sea of glittering lights, and the distant, boiling globe of the star, Crassus. A tactical overlay of searing blue marked out waypoints, planetary bodies, asteroids, and comets with distance counters as the vessel turned, hard and fast enough to let Wraia feel it through the Cobra's inertial syncs.

In front of the main screen a twin-control station formed a broad arc, with the tall, demure Lieutenant Ratcliffe manning the pilot's chair and a younger officer, Ensign Scarrath, at navigation, her nimble fingers moving gracefully across the controls, tracking their course and rekeying vectors as they moved.

"Bring starboard thrusters down ten percent," she ordered quietly. "Bring us around on bearing 323°. Sensors, full spread and mark targets as they come. Forward batteries, check?"

"All forward batteries show green," replied Lieutenant Gallagher, the ship's XO and master gunner. "Gunnery decks three through six primed for point defence salvos, decks six through ten standing by for command. Bombardment decks show all port and starboard tubes loaded and torpedoes armed."

Big and broad, he was three years her senior at the age of thirty-two, but if he held any resentment about being passed over for command by a younger officer, he didn't show it. Gallagher was a consummate professional, with a bristling black moustache and a shaven head beneath his cap. He nodded to her as a series of red indicators began to flash up on the main view screen.

"Hostile targets," barked Ensign Hooper from the tactical module to the left of her command chair. The stern-faced officer keyed fresh sensor sweeps as she spoke, sending her data out to the Cobra's bridge crew, where it could be converted into actions of deadly precision. "I read seven – strike that – nine enemy signatures closing on our position at attack speed."

Making a mental note to pull up Hooper on the erroneous information, Wraia nodded. "Composition?"

"A.I. paints them as a Traussican picket, ma'am. Six gunboats, two corvettes and a frigate – Espandor Pattern."

"Mr. Briar," she snapped to the young man at the communications station. "Signal red alert. All hands to battle stations."

The tactical console bleeped a warning, and Hooper glanced across. "They're locking weapons, ma'am."

"Adjust heading to intercept." Wraia straightened in her seat and cast her eyes down at the smaller command display built into the side of her chair. "Three quarter speed, straight into their teeth, Mr. Ratcliffe."