Free TFS Navajo: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 3 by Tori Harris Page B

indicating that hyperspace transitions are unavailable. You can see them now, right Ensign Fisher?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Got it. Thank you.”
    “Good work, Commander. Tactical, range to the Baldev , please?” Prescott asked.
    “One niner zero thousand kilometers, Captain,” Schmidt replied. “Just passing .05 c and still accelerating.”
    “I’m going to be optimistic and venture a guess that we’ll be able to transition to hyperspace once our range exceeds three hundred thousand kilometers.”
    “I’m not so sure about that, sir,” Reynolds replied. “It apparently doesn’t take much interference to prevent the hyperdrive from doing its thing. I’m thinking more like double that. It’s a good thing Bravo 1 can’t come after us. They’re pretty much hamstrung as long as our fighters are covering their stern.”
    “Dammit!” Prescott swore under his breath, realizing that he had neglected to update the fighter squadrons regarding Theseus’ status. “Badger flights, Theseus -Actual.”
    “Badger 1 … Badger 2,” Zhukov and Waffer replied in their typical, businesslike tone.
    “I’m not sure how much of our situation you were able to piece together over the past couple of minutes, but the purpose of the gravitic beam Admiral Naftur warned us about is to prevent a ship from transitioning to hyperspace. They’ve been hitting us with it ever since we finished our attack run. We are unable to C-Jump at the moment, but believe we should be able to do so once again after we put sufficient distance between ourselves and the Baldev . The presence of Badger 21 Flight off their stern does appear to be forcing them to keep their supplemental shields engaged — and that, in turn, prevents their giving chase. Since I’m pretty sure coming after us is something they would very much like to do, I believe you should expect that they will focus their attention on you once we transition out of the area.”
    “Badger flights copy. Be advised that we are still showing an operational status on all of our C-Drives, so they may only have the capability to target one ship at a time. What are your intentions, Captain?” Zhukov asked.
    “Glad to hear it. Assuming we can clear their grav beam, we intend to C-Jump thirty light seconds downrange, take a quick look at the battle damage assessment, then set up for another attack run on Bravo 1’s stern.”
    “Range to Bravo 1 now three zero zero thousand kilometers,” Schmidt updated in the background.
    “Sir, if I may,” Waffer interjected, “our AI has been chewing on the data from your attack run and it looks like it was significantly more effective than our models predicted. I believe if you execute the same type of attack against Charlie 4, you will at the very least succeed in bringing down her shields so that we can finish her off. You may even destroy her outright. That gets us back to our original plan of being able to focus everything we have left on Bravo 1.”
    Prescott glanced at his XO, who nodded her emphatic agreement under raised eyebrows. “Alright, Badger flights, we’ll go with your suggestion. We won’t be gone long once we C-Jump, so be ready to back us up once we return to start our next attack run. By the same token, don’t hesitate to C-Jump away yourselves if you come under fire.”
    “Will do, Theseus , Badgers out.”
    “Captain, Commander Waffer is definitely right about our attack,” Lau said from Tactical 2. “I was so focused on taking down shield emitters that I didn’t really notice the results of Lieutenant Commander Schmidt’s ordinance until now. Bravo 1’s aft shields remained intact overall — other than the supplemental field reconfiguration I mentioned earlier — but our point location attack seems to have placed so much energy in one spot that some of it managed to impact her hull.”
    “That’s very good news, Lieutenant. Did we do any damage?”
    “C-Jumping,” Fisher interrupted from the Helm console.
    “And