Ted nodded.  Given the distance between themselves and the planet, they would be past the perfect firing location before they knew if they’d hit their targets or not.  But it didn't matter, he told himself.  If they missed, or if the alien point defence was sufficient to stop the projectiles, he had no intention of wasting any more.  Besides, the aliens were unlikely to give them time to stop and reload from the local asteroid belt.

“Fire,” he ordered.

Long hours ticked away as the silent projectiles rocketed towards their targets.  Ted watched, keeping one eye on the alien battlecruiser, until the first reports started to come back into the display.  Four facilities had been hit and destroyed, seven had turned out to have a surprisingly heavy concentration of point defence weapons and two more were missed outright.  Under the circumstances, Ted decided, it was the best they could reasonably hope for.

The alien battlecruiser showed no reaction, no inclination to accelerate and enter engagement range.  Indeed, the distance it was keeping was safe by several orders of magnitude.  Ted puzzled over it, wondering just what the aliens would think of a CO who didn't try to save the facilities.  A naval officer would understand that there was nothing the battlecruiser could have done, but his civilian superiors would have complained loudly at the absence of any actual attempt to save the planet.  They wouldn't understand the realities of naval combat ... he wondered, with a sudden flicker of envy, if the alien government was composed of naval officers.  God knew there was a human colony that believed that military service was the only way to gain the vote.

He turned back to look at the tramline, stretching out ahead of them.  At this rate, the aliens would let them leave the system without interference ... and he couldn't help, but wonder if that was what the aliens wanted the human ship to do.  It was easy enough to project the destination of the tramline, yet there was no way of knowing what might be waiting for them at the other end.  And, with a stealthed picket ship, the aliens would have plenty of time to note Ark Royal’s course and set an ambush.

“Prepare two more drones,” he ordered, looking over at Farley.  “I want to cause as much confusion as possible as we come out of the tramline.”

It might be wasted effort, he knew.  Given enough time, the aliens could have seeded space with beacons and detectors.  But he had to try.

Shaking his head, he picked up the latest report from the doctors and started to read.  The aliens were very alien, unsurprisingly.  But there didn't seem to be any threat of disease, thankfully.  God alone knew what would happen if the Admiralty believed Ark Royal to be compromised.  They’d probably insist on flying the carrier right into the nearest star.