hundred of our people are dead because of it.” Dash gave his head a grim shake. “Not this time. The Archetype and the Swift are as powered up as they’re ever going to be, so we go now. I trust our punch, and I trust the element of surprise.”
“Insertion parameters are calculated,” Sentinel said. “I’d recommend allowing the automation to control the flight through the Gate. The error margins are very small.”
“Do it. And pass all your data to the Orion flight we’ve got on station here, so they can give it to Benzel when he shows up.”
“We’re ready here, Dash,” Leira said.
“Alright. Let’s go, and remember one thing. Fire first. Questions later.”
The transit through the Gate was an anticlimax. One moment they were in home space. The next, they weren’t. The transition was smooth, silent, and completed in a matter of seconds, with a brief shift in the starfield. Ahead, a new pattern emerged, each bright point of light moving or changing color, but still familiar enough to leave Dash able to exhale in a long, slow breath that bordered on relief. As they sailed away from the Gate—which appeared, at this end, much the same as it did at the other—Sentinel set about calculating their position. She was looking for the characteristic strobing of various reference pulsars, while also twisting and turning the patterns of stars through a multitude of orientations, trying to find a match in their own star charts.
“It will take several seconds to determine our position with any accuracy,” Sentinel said. “We are far from home, Dash. Cygnus Realm space isn’t even on my scans, and it’s likely we are no longer in the spiral arm of the Milky Way.”
Dash scanned the tactical display, keeping a close eye on the threat board as he did. So far, it remained dark. “This is . . . I don’t recognize anything.”
“Yes. A very long way.”
“Dash,” Leira said. “We probably shouldn’t stray too far from this Gate. I get the feeling we’ve traveled a lot farther than when we used the gates built by the Golden.”
“Yeah, I—”
The threat board lit up. Three contacts were inbound at high acceleration. And they were close—a lot closer than Dash had expected. The sensors on Assembly Prime weren’t full-fledged Unseen tech, but a hybrid setup. Dash had just assumed that the Archetype’s sensor suite, probably the best in the Cygnus Realm fleet, wouldn’t be so easily fooled. They had more warning, but not much.
“Incoming hostiles,” Dash said. “Leira, let’s go.”
“Arming up. Tactics?” Leira was already busy.
“I have the lead.” Dash applied power, accelerating the Archetype on an intercept course. Leira fell into the wingman’s slot, engines burning bright as the Swift began to bristle with readiness.
“Sensor returns are weak,” Sentinel said. “Firing solutions are slow to develop—”
“Stealth, and a type we’ve not seen before.” Dash scowled at the slow crawl of the dark-lance’s firing solution toward any reasonable level of confidence. “Time to shake their cage.” He loosed a salvo of missiles.
They raced off, coordinating themselves into a complex attack formation that would ensure intercepts no matter how hard the enemy maneuvered. A few seconds later, Leira let fly a fusillade of missiles, streaking toward the enemy at stunning acceleration.
Their enemy. The Cygnus Realm hadn’t had one of those for a while now.
The sleek enemy ships split, taking off in three directions. Dash sent a command to the missiles to focus exclusively on the middle and right targets, while angling toward the ship on the left. He snapped out an experimental dark-lance shot, despite having a confidence level of only just over fifty percent. He was rewarded with a hit anyway. The beam chewed through the other ship’s hull, raking open a long gash. The ship immediately began to slow.
“Good to know we still pack a punch on this side of the street,” Dash muttered.
“Maybe stealth is all they’ve got,” Leira said.
“Or, maybe,” Sentinel put in, “they are just as unfamiliar with our tech as we are with theirs. That could represent a significant advantage.”
“Advantage us, then, and we’ll take it. I like data, and I like data from confirmed kills even more.” Dash veered the Archetype again and lined up a shot on the middle ship. His own missiles, racing toward detonation, rearranged themselves to offer a clear path.
Another hit. Again, the enemy ship staggered, then slowed. A moment later, it was caught in a ferocious series of detonations from Dash’s missiles, pounding it into quiescence, a battered hulk drifting along