[h3][b]=[u]BRUTAL HONESTY[/u]=[/b][/h3]
[b]DESTINY ASCENDANT
INTERPLANETARY SPACE[/b]

The commander looked to her crew. “How long before we can make the jump to Tiir?”
“With cooldown [i]and[/i] spinup time accounted for, about four minutes.”
“Good, get on that. Let me know when we’re ready and I’ll cut this conversation short.”

The commander turned to the holotable where the comms channel to the admiral was patched in. “If they saw what they were supposed to see then they believe I am dead,”Muriel answered confidently.
The flash-jump trick had fooled enemies before. This case would be no different. For a ship in black ops, there was great power in being dead. Of course, it usually only worked once. Enemies fooled once were seldom stupid enough to believe the trick a second time.

The admiral wanted to eliminate the Covenant forces. Muriel thought that was cute. When her assistance was asked for, she could no longer contain her laughter. “Ahahahaha! That’s funny,” she returned to seriousness after her brief outburst.
“You’re outnumbered .... not quite two to one [i]yet[/i],” she consulted the holotable to verify the numbers, “and I’m doubtful you can avoid a broadside duel against this fleet.”

Broadside dueling, or a slugfest as many Imperial Navy officers referred to it, was the least favorable way to engage enemies as it involved the highest risk and highest cost to allied forces for each enemy vessel destroyed. In close range engagements, shells did not miss [i]ever[/i]. The engagement would no longer be a contest of skill, but instead a contest of durability and destructive power. Even the winning vessel would be heavily damaged, often forcing their early retreat and nullifying any numerical advantage gained.

“Admiral I may have more of those fusion torpedoes ready to go but I alone do not wield the power to equalize this engagement.”
It was then that the admiral mentioned their awareness of risk to civilians. Again Commander Muriel suppressed a chuckle. “You’re on the right track but you’re a half dozen pages behind. They’re not just reckless around civilians, they were actively engaging civvie population centers last we saw,” she reported, “and to make matters worse, they’re not the only force down there doing it. That said however, their recent reinforcement makes it unlikely that second force will remain a player ... in this contest at least ... for much longer. To be brutally honest, it grows more likely by the minute that any of your people who were on the surface are already dead.”