Chapter Ten: Strong To Undergo: Part 2

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ii. Laetitia


Miriam rose from her seat, sat back down, then stood again, looking round in confusion and panic, her thoughts in turmoil.

'Ferox, down, down,' Magnar called, thudding back into his seat beside her and scanning the screens. 'It's a frigate, it got through our sensors, seconds away, thank Vindex the cloak was already up.'

Miriam stared out the viewport, eyes sifting through the heavy darkness, searching for the white prow of an Imperial frigate.

Nothing.

But then, gasps and curses, turning heads, even a scream ... And silence. A Shark-Class Imperial frigate descended into the battleship's line of sight, creeping across the viewport window. Miriam couldn't move, trapped like an insect in the face of a tornado. The frigate was vast and terrifying, dripping with sharp laser turrets, black wings carving through that cloying darkness. Its thrusters powered it forwards with a greedy glow, red as blood.

And then it had passed.

Miriam remained frozen as others began to move again, too shocked to tempt fate. Magnar smiled at her in triumph, and she flexed her hands, turning slowly in her seat.

'I can't believe the cloak worked that well?' she managed to splutter in naked disbelief.

'It's just brilliant, isn't it?' he crowed, the pride almost tangible, 'we only perfected the technology several years ago after decades of research and the work of the greatest minds alive. It really has given us the advantage.'

'How?' she exclaimed.

'To get the details talk to one of the soldiers at the science stations, but it works on the principle of mirrors. The cloaking emitters spaced around the hull interfere with the input signals to the viewports of the enemy, effectively wiping the ship from all their sensors and they visually record the surrounding space ... I know,' he said, watching her expression in amusement, 'the Ghost Cloak is undoubtedly our greatest strength, our greatest weapon. There's no way we could even get close to the slave planets without it, do any of the things that we do. The secrecy of Libertas is so invaluable because it provides those vital resources and the opportunity for hundreds of test sites. That's why it's so important that no ship of the Armada falls into enemy hands. It would ruin the resistance.'

Miriam leant back again, following their progress along the blue line on the grid, thoughts churning. The emphatic voice of General Dux once again came through the earphones. 'Deactivate cloak. Initiate Quarter drive.'

The dot on the line suddenly accelerated. Magnar nodded as his Lieutenant called something, turning to her again.

'Go to the secondary research labs and report to Officer Cadet Columba. They need more people for data interpretation.'

She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, fixing the beret securely on her head before rising and making her way up the Command Centre. She was hit by another flush of admiration for Sandyx, who was deftly handling the piloting controls as she passed, before nodding at General Dux, dropping her eyes respectively and standing aside as she hurried by. Fortis was on the opposite side of the highest tier.

Miriam surveyed his back for a fraction of a moment, contemplating whether to apologise again for her crassness, but then she thought better of it and hastily descended the metal steps from the Command Centre.

She shared the elevator at the end of the corridor with an agitated Lieutenant, her face red, rocking on her heels and muttering rapidly under her breath. As soon as the door slid back, she half-ran down the corridor and clanged away around the corner. Miriam stepped out, a web of pipes hissing beside her head, the echoes of yelling soldiers spiralling towards her. She hurried through the ship for several minutes, passing the Infirmary, Dr Sana just visible bustling around. Then she found herself in the vast outer corridor again where she had spoken to Damon earlier, the outside wall one staggering viewport. She threw an eye over the stars, searching subconsciously for the silhouette of a frigate. Nothing. For now.

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