Chapter 71
Rendili Approach, Rendili System
Rendili Sector
Uninterrupted hyperspace travel had its risks, that I knew. Every naval officer worth their uniform did. There was a reason prolonged, uninterrupted hyperspace travel in and into enemy territory was unheard of. Yes, it was invariably true that a fleet was virtually and practically invulnerable in hyperspace–but it was also invariably true that a fleet was most vulnerable exiting hyperspace. Simply put, whilst in hyperspace transit, you had absolutely no influence with the rest of the galaxy in realspace, and vice versa.
Your astrogation instruments, tuned to realspace, were more useful turned off than screaming in madness as they tried to cope with the non-Euclidean nature of hyperspace. There was no ‘navigation’ in hyperspace; your fleet was an arrow shot into the wind, and you can only trust you aimed well enough when plotting the jump.
There was no contact either, as there was no technology yet capable of cross-dimension communications, to the chagrin of the galaxy’s brightest minds. It was for this reason that fleets often extracted and inserted multiple times over a particularly long travel itinerary, especially when travelling in hostile territory. It was considered far too risky, especially when the enemy could figure out your destination and assemble an ambush force there in advance.
The bare minimum, as established by common galactic naval doctrine, was to extract a few lightyears short of the intended destination, and send a scouting party to investigate first. If the scoutships returned in the stipulated amount of time with the all clear, jump the final leg; if the scoutships do not, consider the destination compromised, and abort. This was conventional naval wisdom.
Following standard procedure, it was expected for the 28th Mobile Fleet to adhere to this wisdom–if not for one problem. The procedure of extracting and inserting again was far easier said than done, and was exponentially harder and longer for every vessel in the fleet. For a fleet of the 28th Mobile’s current size–just under two-hundred vessels–it could take anywhere from half a day to a full standard day to extract, reorganise, correct bearings, recalibrate instruments, plot course, synchronise hyperdrives, slave navicomputers, and insert again.
Trying to jump a fleet of two-hundred was risky business in of itself, considering all it would take was a single misplaced decimal point to cause a catastrophic collision in pseudomotion–on both ends of the jump. We could always forego the pre-jump precautions, as fleets often do in emergencies, but we would still have to wait for the scoutships anyway.
Even half a day was enough time for a battle to start and end, and racing to the help of another fleet, it was a calculated risk to forego scouting ahead in the interest of time. Even the Givin agreed, that if our sister fleet had summoned us for aid, then haste was of the essence. Calli and I made a wordless promise to each other back on Trench’s flagship, and I would not renege on it.