Free Queen of the Pirates by Blaze Ward Page B

speed.
    And then, the surprise.
    Da Vinci had the best sensors, and was relaying her boards to everyone else on a tight beam. The back side of Alpha and the base on Gamma both lit up within a second of each other as Auberon ’s two stealth missiles, launched during the noisy chaos of the wing coming out, impacted.
    Hopefully, that blinded them right at the moment his force had jumped forward. He agreed with Ainsley, those people really needed more panic. Time to go to work.
    Ξ
    Denis sat at the center of his bridge and watched everything flow together. Technically, it was her bridge. Keller was the command centurion in charge, according to Fleet, but she had made good her promise to let him fight Auberon while she commanded the entire squadron down on the flag bridge.
    Hopefully, when they promoted her to Fleet Lord, he would get bumped up as well. He couldn’t imagine having to go back to just being an Executive Officer, unless they put him on a Dreadnaught, or something else big. But that was a problem for next week.
    Today, he was skirting along the edge of the asteroid belt, at a relatively safe distance, at full speed, closing on Sarmarsh IV along one of the safe vectors d’Maine had identified. Unlike their normal attack runs, the squadron was sailing forward in a traditional formation. Rajput was out front, running hard and fast to keep up with the flight wing. CR–264 was tucked in close, just in front of Auberon and below her two entire flight levels, just like an escort corvette should be. Ready to hunt anything coming after the carrier.
    Anyone who knew Keller would be surprised at this pattern. Anyone expecting a Republic of Aquitaine fleet to show up would have been surprised by anything else. They were about to get several other surprises instead.
    “Gunnery,” Denis said, loud enough for the whole bridge to hear, “confirm estimated time to impact.”
    He watched Tamara Strnad look a question at the gunner, her black hair bobbing. Either she needed a haircut, or she was growing it out to pull back. He hadn’t noticed until now. And this wasn’t the time to ask.
    Maybe in fifteen minutes, when the immediate craziness was over.
    The gunner, Centurion Afolayan nodded once, barely taking his eyes off his boards as he slowly adjusted firing solutions.
    “Confirmed,” she responded a beat later. “Impact in ninety seconds.”
    Denis looked at the face of Commander Keller on one of the smaller screens to his left side. Noise–deafening around his station let her talk without generally being overheard. She smiled back.
    “Squadron, this is the Flag,” she said over the general push. She spoke with a voice that somehow combined intimate warmth with the face of a hammer. “Initiate Phase 2.”
    “Helm and Engineering,” Denis said, looking forward, “bring the engines to emergency flank speed.”
    A blended chorus of replies floated back to him. This was a good crew. He had served on ships where the command centurion expected people to make eye contact and maintain proper protocol, even when under fire. He just wanted the job done first. Pretty could come later, after victory.
    Even with the gravplates, the big ship shuddered as the engines surged. He watched the main screen with bright anticipation. This was why he had joined the fleet, to be one of the good guys, hunting down pirates and making the galaxy a better place.
    On the main projector, a flash of light mushroomed over the horizon of Alpha , about where sensors had said the pirate base would be found. It was too early to be their missile striking home.
    “Scanners,” Denis said sharply, but the man was already rapidly pushing buttons on his console.
    “Working. Stand by,” Centurion Giroux said, his mousy brown hair looking vaguely blue in the light from his screens.
    Denis watched him pick up a comm and rapidly speak into it, deadened around his console so the bridge wouldn’t be overly loud right now. It was a good idea, but he wanted