Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

it gives us eyes close to the enemy now…and I think it may have just proven its worth.

“Well done; show me the course data,” Morgan said.

Delta-Six’s course was much what it had been before initially, a series of carefully calculated curves that limited the STG’s ability to escape without detection. And then, suddenly, the Swarm’s course sharpened into a straight line.

Morgan checked the vector and raised an eyebrow.

“Have they entered hyperspace yet?” The course was straight away from the rosette, likely making certain they’d cleared the impermeable zone where entering hyperspace would be impossible.

“Not yet, but that’s my read of their course as well,” Ort told her. “It’ll be another hour before I have data on Delta-Five and Delta-Four, but…if they’ve both broken off pursuit as well, something’s going on.”

“Something happened we don’t know about,” Morgan agreed. “The Queen can’t afford to tie up a thousand bioforms hunting for us. But…” Morgan shook her head. “The Infinite have more units than we can count, don’t they? They don’t even have any of the big ones in the pursuit swarms; they’re just Threes and Fours.”

Just ships between one and one hundred kilometers in length. Dealing with the Infinite was completely throwing off her sense of scale.

“My guess would be that somebody else just hit the edge of the nebula and they’re redeploying to secure their perimeter,” Ort told her. “Or…they’re worried someone’s going to.”

“If Swarm Charlie just got its ass kicked, they might be worried about their perimeter,” Morgan agreed. “But they’ve got a lot of resources. In their place, Charlie would have had to be completely wrecked before I started redeploying the people hunting the guys in my territory.

“That sounds like the Wendira may have surprised them?” Ort asked.

“Have the group hold position here,” Morgan ordered. “We’ll wait for the data update on Delta-Four and Delta-Five.

“If all three Delta groups have entered hyperspace, we don’t need to hide inside the rosette. If there’s no one hunting us, I’ll take the risk of making an outright run for it!”

Two hours later, Morgan had woken up her flag staff and everyone was gathered around her in a briefing room—including Irisha and Protan, attending by hologram.

“All three of the pursuit swarms broke off two and a half hours ago,” she told them. “Simultaneously, so far as we can tell, which says they have some kind of FTL com that works in this mess.

“Most importantly, though, that means we are no longer being blockaded. I am inclined to take the task group and make an immediate run for open space,” she said. “I wanted to check in with everyone before we make quite so drastic a change in plans.”

“I prefer it to spending a hundred cycles running in the dark,” Irisha replied. “But my people are no longer truly capable of contributing to a fight. My star intruders have only defensive weapons left, and all of my remaining escorts are damaged.”

“My cruisers are undamaged,” Protan said. “We can make the run, and we can position ourselves to protect what remains of the Wendira fleet.”

Her holographic gaze focused on her people’s ancient enemy. “Your people have borne the brunt of this mission, Sub-Commandant, but I believe my people can keep them safe for the way home.”

Morgan was actually touched. Fighting on the same side seemed to be doing a lot of good for the Wendira and the Laians. It gave her hope.

“We are not sure how well our stealth fields work against the Infinite in hyperspace,” Ort warned. “This is a risk.”

“It will always be a risk,” Morgan replied. “It is possible, even, that this is a trap. They could easily have recognized what we were doing and created what appeared to be a tempting opportunity to escape.

“We’re going to watch our anomaly scanners with extreme care as we get close to our portal point,” she told them. “Hopefully, we should see any ambush before we transit into hyperspace.

“But I think we have to take the risk. A hundred cycles in here will leave the families of all of our people thinking they are dead. A hundred cycles of running and hiding will damage the mental and physical health of our crews.

“If we have the opportunity to break out, I feel we have to take it,” she concluded. “But…I am still prepared to accept arguments as to why we shouldn’t.”

The briefing room was quiet and she looked around. There were half a dozen species in the room. A dozen in her task group. They mostly had different cultures—the A!Tol and the Imperial Races were a special case—and different assessments of risk and courage.

All of them returned her gaze.

“I think we have to try, sir,” Bethany Rogers finally said, speaking for all of them. “We owe it to our people to get them to safety—and we owe it to the people we left outside the nebula to report on our mission.

“It’s a risk, but we’re all soldiers. We made our choices when we swore our oaths and put on our uniforms. Our duty is out there, Division Lord Casimir, and I think we need to go find it.”

“Unanimous, then?” Morgan asked her officers with a small smile. “I wasn’t quite expecting that, but I was hoping for it.

“Talk to your departments; put together your operations plans. We’re still probably going to have to punch through a picket, though we may be able to dodge around everybody. Plan for a running fight, people.

“But plan for getting us all out of here.”

Chapter Sixty-One

There had been no Infinite bioforms visible on their scanners, even through the daisy-chained probes, for a full cycle—over twenty-three hours—when Morgan finally ordered her people to make a run for it.

“We watch the starcom receivers closely as we move,” she ordered as the ships came back up to their full speed. “We’re still cycles away from picking up a signal, but the sooner we have an update on the outside world, the better.”

“If they pulled all their units back, Swarm Charlie probably