Her forces had searched the rest of the Alaris system before moving on. It had been empty, save for half a dozen automated scanner stations, all of which she had destroyed. She was in Confederation space, but all hope of maintaining total secrecy had been lost. The second ship had almost certainly had time to send a report through the transwarp lines…and the automated stations as well. She doubted the Confeds would conclude they had an Alliance battleship on their doorstep. Most likely—hopefully, at least—they would assume they were dealing with some kind of pirate or renegade traffic. A problem for sure, but not one that called for immediate, desperate action. Time was the resource she needed, and the longer the Confeds waited, the greater her chance for success. With any luck, by the time a force of any substance was sent against her, it would find the entire Alliance fleet waiting.

There had been nothing of note between Alaris and the refueling station on Santis, just two small mining colonies, inhospitable worlds with a few hundred hardy souls digging out one sort of rare mineral or another, trying to get rich before their host planets killed them.

Kat had ordered their satellites and orbital facilities destroyed, but she’d left the ground settlements unmolested, a choice she knew had raised a few eyebrows among the crew. She had the authority to do as she deemed best for the mission, and her destruction of the orbital assets left the mining colonies cut off, unable to communicate or call for help. Still, she realized most Alliance commanders would have chosen to bombard the ground positions, slaughtering the miners and other civilians as an added security measure. Alliance doctrine wasn’t genocidal by nature, but it placed first priority on the mission above all things, and enemy casualties, civilian or otherwise, were rarely considered.

Kat had felt the urge at first to do the same, but something had stopped her. Death in battle was one thing, the struggle to conquer or die rather than ever accept slavery again…she understood that. It was the nature of the universe. But slaughtering innocent civilians left her cold. She knew uncountable numbers had died on Heliopolis, and in her other campaigns. She hadn’t really considered it until recently, but it had begun to trouble her. She would do whatever was necessary to execute her orders, but that was all.

“Gold Dagger Squadron reports ready to launch, Commander.”

“Reverse thrust. Bring us to a halt five hundred thousand kilometers from the station.” She had no idea of the range of the platform’s weapons, but she was sure it was less than half a million kilometers.

“Reversing thrust.”