"The Fornax Navy has lost," Taya corrected austerely. She held an arm forth towards the mercenaries. A smooth metal wristband with dozens of buttons on it encircled her wrist. Biting her lip in frustration she tapped several buttons with a rapidity that suggested long practice. A holographic display sprang to life before her. Sayeeda recognized it as a map of the Fornax system. Large red dots and smaller blue dots flashed along with projected courses and velocity. Neil sighed immediately. Sayeeda cast a side long glance at him, there still seemed to be plenty of blue dots on the screen. 

"Its worse than it looks he explained," making a guesture at the velocity markings on one of the naval vessels.

"This is the Star Of Cobani, it looks like its close but its at nearly 0.8 C," he explained. Sayeeda understood, without the aid of the RIP it would take a week long burn to shed that kind of velocity. Even with a period that long it would stress the ship nearly to breaking. It was a rout, but seen in its very early stages as space battles were observed.

"Ok," Sayeeda conceded, "So we have a crazy RIP storm, space filled with hostile ships, dosen't seem like flight is a great option." Taya nodded, not in agreement, but gaining confidence as the conversation began to edge back towards what she had expected. The display changed as she keyed in some commands, shrinking the volume to the localized area of Fornax itself.

"The Magos believes that with the majority of the ships landing on Fornax, the storm disturbing the RIP might be navigable. At least marginally," Taya said calmly. There was an assurance in her voice that led Sayeeda to believe that she had good reason to accept whatever information she had gathered.

"The Duke has ordered it suppressed because of the well justified fear that anyone who had a ship might try to flee and take half the fighters with them." Sayeeda nodded, that did indeed make sense, certainly men like Cho-Lan would flee and take their retainers with them, dramatically weakening the defense the Duke was trying to mount.

"Even if that information is wrong, I've arranged to purchase three Cryo Pods. We can get up to a near lightspeed burn then go into cryo untill we clear the shadow. All information suggests that would take less then two or three months," Taya went on. Junebug was impressed the girl knew her business and seemed remarkably competent for the scion of high nobility.

"I assume both the Duke and your father have people watching you?" Sayeeda asked. Taya nodded quickly.

"Yes, constantly," she admitted, unconciously looking over her shoulder. What ruse had she used to make it to this meeting Sayeeda wondered.

"So next thing to do is come up with a plan to get you and your cryo pods aboard the Highlander."

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