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

got smashed up pretty well,” Rogers estimated. “But I’d love confirmation of that.”

“We won’t get it until we’re at least a realspace light-year from the rosette,” Morgan said. “But I want to know, not guess.”

“They could still have the entirety of Swarm Delta sitting just on the other side of the hyperspace barrier,” her chief of staff warned.

“I know,” Morgan agreed. “And we’re going to be ready to turn and run at any sign of trouble. We’ve got a full watch on every anomaly scanner in the task group. We’ll know if it’s an ambush.”

“Will we know before it’s too late?” Rogers asked.

Morgan glanced around the flag deck to make sure no one was close enough to overhear their half-whispered conversation.

“Forty-sixty,” she admitted. “But we owe it to our people to try to make it out of this mess. The sooner we’re in open space, the happier I’ll be. If I never see this nebula again, it will be too soon.”

“It has certainly made an impression, hasn’t it?” Rogers agreed. “We’re over thirty hours from being able to enter hyperspace, sir. Standard watches and schedules?”

“Until the final hour,” Morgan confirmed. “Once we’re close enough that they can come out of hyperspace inside our weapons’ range, I want everyone at battle stations until we’ve made the transition.”

“At least we’re not running in blind.”

“We are very much running blind,” Morgan confessed. “But we’re never not going to be running blind, Bethany. It’s this or three goddamn months in this place, and I am so, so done with this nebula and this goddamn necklace of stars.”

Rogers chuckled softly.

“I don’t think anyone in the STG is going to argue with you there,” she admitted. “I’m down for the run, sir; you already knew that.”

“Everyone is,” Morgan said. Not many people wouldn’t be down for trying to escape being trapped by the enemy. It was her job, as Division Lord and task group commander, to judge whether running was the right call.

She was…eighty-ish percent sure she’d made the right call.

Despite her own orders to make sure that everyone got enough rest, Morgan ended up having to take medication to sleep around hour twenty-four.

She returned to the bridge, once again having taken the time to shower, braid her hair and even do her makeup. She made sure to look her best as she led forty thousand people to an unknown fate she was unquestionably responsible for.

“Anything on the anomaly scanners?” was the first thing she asked.

“Nothing,” Ort replied. “Of course, we’re still a light-hour from the edge of the impermeability zone. It looks like their singularity teleporters have around the same three-light-thousandth-cycle range as our hyperspace missiles, so it’s not until we’re in that area that we’re in danger.”

And then they’d detect anything that had been in place since at least five minutes before. If it was a trap…they’d see it coming, but Morgan wasn’t sure they’d see it coming in time.

“Take the group to battle stations,” she ordered. “We’re in the final stretch of the realspace run. Full stealth-field checks on every ship.”

With other ships to hand, that involved dropping the com links temporarily and doing everything they could to find the ship without knowing where it was. At the range of the task group’s formation, the stealth fields were defeatable, but it still allowed them to assess if the systems were working as expected.

“On it,” Ort agreed.

There were no lights and alarms on the flag deck to denote battle stations, but Morgan could hear the faint echo of the alarm echoing through the rest of the ship.

Her staff and their teams filed in over the next minute—fast enough to tell her that everyone had been anticipating the call to battle stations. Within ninety seconds, every station on the flag deck was full, and she had a virtual link up to the battleship’s bridge.

“All ships have checked in,” Ort reported. “Laian cruisers are assuming escort positions around the Wendira ships.”

If nothing else came of this mission, that sight offered Morgan hope for the future. The Laian warships had formed a defensive sphere around the star intruders and escorts, interlacing the defensive drones from both fleets and positioning the Republic ships to take any hits aimed at the Hive vessels.

Enemies all too recently, today the Laians were positioning themselves to defend the more-vulnerable Wendira ships.

“All ships in formation,” Rogers told Morgan, a few moments after the chief of staff took her own seat. “All stealth fields have passed the testing sequences. We are as good to go as we’re going to be.”

“Thank you,” Morgan said calmly, leaning back in her chair. A single command brought a timer onto the main display, counting down the thousandth-cycles until they could enter hyperspace—and a second timer, on the screens of her own seat, counting down the minutes.

“Two hundredth-cycles to portal,” Ort announced.

Twenty-eight minutes. Too long for Morgan to hold her breath. Too short for her to not feel completely on edge along with every other member of the task group.

“Anomaly scanners are still clear?” she asked.

“So far,” the Ivida confirmed.

Fourteen light-minutes. They weren’t quite into the danger zone, but they were close enough that they should, in theory, be able to see an ambushing force. The problem was that the anomaly scanner was lightspeed-limited in realspace.

It was entirely possible that something was a realspace light-day or more away and would still be in position by the time they reached the edge of the impermeable zone. On the other hand, they weren’t already there.

That gave Morgan at least some hope.

She checked the reports coming in from her task group. Everything was showing green except for munitions stocks and the escorts. There was no way to replenish their missiles there, or to repair the battered escorts that had borne the brunt of the missiles that hadn’t found starkillers.

If they had to fight, it would be over quickly one way or another.

“Wait,” Ort suddenly snapped. “Anomaly contacts! Multiple anomaly contacts!”

Morgan’s attention jerked to the main screen as their