“It will be enough,” Voss said emphatically, thinking in her mind what the escort was going to be and smiling at it, “trust me, I think it will be more than enough.”
Five Days later, Alversian Orbit
APS Tonnant
“Sir, the last of the merchant ships and escorts are reporting all go, we are ready to break from Alversian orbit.”
“Make it so.” Captain Jeremy Miles nodded as he settled back into his command chair, watching on the viewscreen as the panoramic scene that was the blue and green marble of Alversia slowly disappear as his ship banked away, pointing her bows towards the cold depths of space. He sat in the centre of the bridge, his crew moving around him, completing the tasks that would be required to make the Heavy Cruiser ready for action should it be needed. They were escorting a convoy of raw materials and other resources to the Setulan homeworld, along a route they had recently been informed contained a barbaric and brutal sentient species that they had never met before. Miles was looking forward to it. His convoy consisted of eight Philosopher-Class freighters, six Alversian run and two Setulan, while the Alversian contingent of the escort consisted of his own heavy cruiser, powerful enough to take down dreadnoughts if needed, a single cruiser, one AA cruiser, a light cruiser, two destroyers and four corvettes. It was powerful enough to be a task force on it’s own, enough to take on anything the Ternion could throw at them or, indeed, whatever this new species could throw at them.
Miles was a Captain born of war, although he thought of himself as a diplomat first and a warrior second, there was no doubting which of the two roles he had spent most of his time performing. With the twelve and thirteenth Danaversian wars, the Korr war, the SASM war and the False Rebellion, he had had enough time spent directing a ship in battle. It was why he was in charge of a Victory-Class Heavy Cruiser, the most powerful type of cruiser available to the Alversians, capable of taking on ships of the line if needed.
Looking across at his Operations Officer, a Kitsune by the name of Kyomi, Miles gave a series of orders,
“Order the convoy to form up on us, we’ll be approaching dead man’s land in a minute,” He referred to the asteroid field that made FTL travel impossible, “get me the commander of the Setulan contingent.”
Once he had a channel through to the Setulan, he snapped off a quick salute and looked right at the Captain facing him,
“Sir, we’re due to enter Dead man’s land any minute now, do you by any chance have any experience of encountering these raids?” His own ship was new to the theatre, all his vessels were, and he wanted the experience of someone who knew what they were doing before he threw himself onto the fire.
