Incursion Vector

020

[▲] Caminha Waypoint

From the cockpit of the SIF lurking near the bow of the Anansi, Nim watched the distorted ring of space twist the background stars into something of a streaked pool orbiting a void large enough for the nearby Agamemnon to shift through. The Anansi had picked up the gravity well as they were doing forward reconnaissance, almost a hundred thousand kilometers in front and above where most of the Tiaha fleet was floating stationary. It took a little under three minutes for all four ships to scramble everything relevant into play to greet whatever was slowly emerging from the gate.

It was taking far too long for anything to show up.

"Gravity profile matches up against a Strix-class destroyer," came Calli's voice over the comex. With the Heinlein in the battlesphere but still lacking a full bridge crew, the balance of which was now scheduled to meet them at Lalande with the rest of their fighter wings, she had taken up her not-that-official post in the crow's nest of their home ship's CIC rather than deploy in her Athena marauder. They hadn't exactly been thrilled with the decision, as it left them without their best close-quarters fighter in what would definitely turn into close-quarters combat, but given that they were outnumbered a hundred ships to one the Captain had decided Calli would be sitting out the boarding party to play com pong on the bridge.

"No one's fabricated one of those since before my grandparents were born," commented Damien. "They didn't even have jump drives that'd work on something of that mass back then. But that's definitely a stable EinRosen bridge.”

"Jury rigged Casimir rails, maybe?" proposed Vic. "I mean, I've heard of it being done and sort of not getting the entire crew killed. Could be why they're so slow off the bridge. This wait is ridiculous.”

"That's a lot of work to re-use a POS boat like that thing,” said the leader of Flight Errant. His name was Peter Shalimov, but no one called him that, just like no one had ever really called Nava 'Major Navarro.' Most just referred to him by his callsign, Shanks, even his subordinates. He wasn't as particular on ranks and surnames as Keiji was though it was pretty clear everyone knew he was the guy in charge of the flight.

Jenni Holt, the cowboy-hat-wearing Abrams pilot everyone in Errant called Boltdown, spoke up in agreement with Shanks. "Their mitigation was barely enough to qualify as safe for extrasolar patrols. They got dumped off on the Vanguard since they usually never leave system, and the Vanguard sold them off to the Colonies when they came out with the Draco-class, what, seventy years ago?"

"Stripping the hull plating nets a pretty good profit since it's so close to durability specs for Alkonst-classes," ventured Karda. "Uh... so I've heard. From people that play the recycling market. Maybe it's just wearing another ship's skin?”

"Recycling market my ass, kid," laughed Errant's XO, Eric Halskar. The man had a curly head of red hair in an even brighter shade than Nim's, so it wasn't really much of a guess as to where he'd gotten his callsign. Everyone called him 'Eric the Red' so often he had a viking hammer painted on the hull of his Proteus.

The leader of Lyall's fighter wing, Towers, along with the thirteen other members of his two flights, dropped into the comex as his marauders hit the black. She watched them streak out of the Agamemnon's hangar bay in scattered formation, then branch off and head towards opposite ends of the engagement sphere, noting the new symbols painted on the fighters signaling that there were a couple new pilots in the wing since their last joint exercise. "Agamemnon Wing to Heinlein Wing. We're in sphere and heading to position with perimeter objective on Z's."

"Clear read, Agamemnon Wing," confirmed Keiji. "Heinlein Wing prepare to engage. Flight Methuselah will land and secure with go-ahead. Flight Errant has covering objective."