[b]Naris orbit[/b]
The New Frontier orbital station has been a hive of activity for the past ten ten months. Among the few passenger liners and ever present freighters, nested in the numerous berths scattered around the station itself, were at least six Warrior and four Prowler-class corvettes. Further behind them, hidden away from most praying eyes, the bow of a Starfury-class heavy cruiser was visible from Colonel Eudorian’s seat in the station’s observation dome. Although the Council tried to conceal the uncommon activity around the shipyards by covering the open berths with metal plates, everyone knew something was coming. It was uncommon for the military to seal off several berths without at least a nonsense cover story. The Colonel remembered the rumors that emerged mere hours after the Exile Rebellion because the official sources were silent, leaving imagination running rampant. Fortunately, public relations weren’t his responsibility. He would just have to tell everyone that he doesn’t know about anything. He picked up his bag and walked out of the observation deck, heading toward the shuttle bay.
 
Minutes before departure, a fair-skinned woman rushed into the small passenger compartment, panting for breath despite her powered suit.
“Ran quite a distance, have we?” The Colonel asked.
“Indeed. Major Agrippa Nazari, your new XO.” She responded, handing him a stack of papers, “Crew list, cargo manifest, my transfer order and recommendation, engineering reports for the past two weeks and Gunnery officer’s inspection summary.”
“For Maxtis’ sake, take a breath.” he growled, thumbing through the papers, stopping briefly at the Major’s service record.
“Departure orders? I still haven’t received any.” she asked.
“T minus thirteen hours. Smart of them, we’ll be leaving with Lux on the other side of the planet. With no light, the only thing visible will be the subspace windows. The jump point is located away from the observation dome, so even those will not be seen by many. We’re jumping beyond the outer belt, ten kilometers from the node.”
“That’s a lot of secrecy. How they managed to hide a fleet of eight corvettes, four frigates, two destroyers and two cruisers goes beyond me.”
“Four destroyers and ten corvettes. ND Edia, ND Ernoma, NCv Corvus and NCv Anisedora were added to the list yesterday.”
“That’s twenty ships, not counting transports.” she gasped, “Now I hope we don’t find any intelligent life, because if we show up in someone’s back yard with this lot, nobody with their head screwed on right will believe us when we tell them we are just exploring the neighbouring systems. I understand they’re being cautious, but this is built like an invasion fleet.”
“The Council fears we will run into hostile life. Would you rather come prepared and hope you can reach out to them before an accident happens, or face an empire of xenophobes that see you as a snack with just six Prowlers and two Auroras as was originally planned? But you’re right. I intend to hold back most of the fleet. Well only take three ships through. We’ll decide what to do based on what we’ll find on the other side. But I reckon it’ll be a bunch of rocks, maybe a few useful planets. Or we could jump near a black hole for all we know.”
 
[b]Fourteen hours later[/b]
The expeditionary fleet assembled around the intersystem node. The Starfury and Aurora-class cruisers in the middle, flanked by the rest of the ships. Colonel Eudorian took up his position on the Ira’s bridge, looking over the fleet. Only the position lights were visible, with the occasional faint glow of thrusters here and there.
“FCO, contact the ND Elbus and NFg Impavida. Order them to follow us through. SCO, Tell the others to hold here. Boffins estimate the jump to take a little under four hours. If they don’t hear from us within eight hours, they are to notify Control and send a scout to report immediately. Should that happen, tell them to expect trouble. We’ll try to call back as soon as possible.”
The three ships broke formation, heading towards the center of the node.
“Engineering reports subspace motivators ready. Both reactors steady.”
“Signal the others. Jump in ten seconds.”
Three subspace windows opened and swallowed the three ships, sending them onto a four hour journey into the unknown.