Black Legion: Gates of Cilicia Read Online Free PDF

stable.
    “Everyone! Today is a momentous day. It is the day we finally got off our collective arses and made the decision to wipe out the Laconians, once and for all. They have pushed us at every opportunity, and now they will see what the might of our Armada can do. A toast!”
    He lifted his glass up high, and the rest of the audience did the same.
    “The Alliance!” he shouted and threw back his glass. The rest of the assembled friends and strangers alike lifted their own glasses.
    “The Alliance!” called out the rest as they joined in with his sentiments. Xenophon watched them all with a feeling of despair and dismay.
    What are the odds I get called up to fight in this idiotic war? he thought.

CHAPTER TWO
     

    Gamma Squadron, Aegospotami Nebulae
    Xenophon gazed through his virtual windows and out into space. His plan hadn’t worked out as expected. Instead of staying at home, he’d been forced to join the Alliance Navy. That was six months ago, and he was now on his first military posting. Six months had seemed like years, but he still felt far from ready to take part in the campaign against the Laconians. For a brief moment, he forgot he was looking at an electrostatic polymer display rather than the reinforced glass it emulated. The centimetre-thick unit was part of nearly thirty similar units installed through the gundecks and command centre. It gave the impression the ship was thin skinned and surrounded by glass. A shape like that of a diamond glistened, and the object gave off flickers of light of many colours. He looked at it carefully, and the display quickly altered the camera’s level of magnification, detecting his gaze and interest.
    Just more stars. Where are they? They are out there somewhere, he wondered.
    They had been out in this part of space for almost an hour now, and the adrenalin pumping through his body was starting to make him feel sick. There were so many dots and smudges of light out there, and any one of them could be a ship with its own gunners watching down their own barrels. The thought sent a shudder through his body. The ship’s sensor package was working at full capacity, but there was only so much space it could monitor.   That didn’t preclude the enemy from simply jamming the sensors themselves.
    He looked at the configuration panel to his right and considered running another optimisation subroutine. The plasma charging system was running at over ninety eight percent, and far more than was required to work well in combat.
    Screw it, ninety-eight will do, he thought, but looked about to see what the rest of the gunners were doing. They appeared to be checking their systems, but they could equally just be sat, waiting as he was. He sighed.
    Something happen, anything!
    The small flotilla of six Hydra class Alliance destroyers moved from their defensive positions outside of the Aegospotami Nebulae. They were only twenty parsecs from their operating base, but it felt as though they were ten times that distance away. It was an easy trip of two jumps to get back, assuming resupply drones were waiting at the supply point.
    We could do it in one jump though, he reminded himself.
    The safe maximum jump distance was supposed to be limited to fifteen parsecs, but the emergency reserves could be used to boost the trip to twenty. The thought of being left stranded in space was a terrifying thought. As one of the many patrols looking for the Laconian fleet, they needed to travel far from their base to hunt for any signs of the dreaded flotilla. The Alliance ships were small, fast and lightly armoured, but they could do little against a main warship. Their orders were simple; record the enemy disposition and course, then return to the designation jump co-ordinates and transmit the data back to fleet command at their base.
    Can we make it out of here if they turn up? The fear of a major warship started to grow in his thoughts. I need to check the guns . It was his job, and returning to it