“Launch a second shell of recon drones,” he ordered.  He'd wondered if he was looking at a diversion, but the aliens definitely seemed to be coming from the same direction.  “Send them out along the path taken by the alien starfighters.”

He looked back down at the display, silently calculating vectors.  But there were just too many unknown variables for the analysts to say anything for sure.  No matter how he looked at it, it was clear that the aliens had put some effort into their ambush.  But did they know that the flotilla was heading for New Russia?  They had to know ... unless they assumed that Ted intended to attack the alien homeworlds ...

A thought struck him and he pulled up the tramline chart, thinking hard.  The aliens had been careful – targeting a world that could pose a danger while ignoring ones that didn't – but Vera Cruz hadn't posed a danger.  It had been nothing more than an isolated stage-one colony world ... and its founders didn't have the resources to turn it into a centre of industrial production.  Had the aliens merely wanted to test their weapons against a defenceless target or had they something else in mind?  All they’d done, as far as Ted could tell, was give the human race a month’s warning, time to gather the defensive force that had been destroyed at New Russia.  Had that been the objective?

He shook his head.  Any plan with too many moving pieces was a plan that was likely to go spectacularly wrong.  That had been hammered into his head at the Academy.  Logically, the aliens would have learnt the same lesson during their expansion into space.  And that meant ...

... What if Vera Cruz was right next to an alien system?

Shaking his head, he pushed the thought aside as a new set of icons appeared on the display.

“One alien carrier, previously unknown design,” Fitzwilliam’s voice said.  “Judging by her size, she can deploy more starfighters than any of our carriers.”

“Take us towards her,” Ted ordered.  He switched back to the system display and smiled to himself.  Unless the aliens retreated at once, they wouldn't be able to find a tramline to escape before the humans overran their position.  “And ready the mass drivers.”

He studied the live feed from the drones, silently considering what he was seeing.  The alien carrier looked fragile, somehow, compared to Ark Royal.  But then, so did a modern human carrier.  Once they got a solid lock on her hull, she was dead.  He watched the mass drivers powering up, ready to unleash a shotgun blast of ballistic projectiles that would be enough to damage the alien ship, even destroy her if they scored a direct hit.  On the display, the alien ship launched another wing of starfighters, then started to pull back.  Ted wasn't too surprised.