Jay stood in front of a cold gray metal door. He fidgeted with his light gray uniform for a moment before taking a deep breath, reading himself to step inside. The hissed open as Jay walked into a room filled with men, older more experienced men.

As he neared them one man waved to him and strode toward him. As the man neared Jay he grinned, his bright blue eyes filled with a welcoming glow. He held out his hand in greeting, “Lieutenant Commander Preston Badgers, you must be Commander Montivera?”

Jay nodded and shook the man's hand, “Yes I am.”

Preston nodded, “I’ve been assigned as your first officer aboard the Agarthia.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise Commander. I have to admit, though, you're younger than I expected.”

Jay smiled nervously, “I understand my age, and inexperience is a cause for concern. Please bear with me and if you have any concerns or suggestions please speak up and let me know.”

Badgers nodded. “If the stories I’ve heard about you are true I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Ahem!” The sound of someone clearing their throat rang out throughout the room. The men in the room turned to see a grizzled older man standing above them on a raised platform.

The men in the room quickly gathered around the platform. “Listen up,” The man called, “I am Vice Admiral Gilkes, and I will be the flag officer on this mission.”

He paused to look over each person in the room before hitting a button on something attached to his wrist. As soon as he did, a blue hologram of a planet surrounded by a broken circle of asteroids burst into life above the crowd of men.

“This is Ferndisin,” Gilkes announced, “I’m sure all of you have heard about the current situation. Our mission however is to get in and get as many people as we can out.”

He hit another button, and a series of ships appeared on the far edge of the holomap. “For this task we will bring eight carriers, the Hoffin, Asmir, Archia, Redis, Faremear, O’tar, Warmach, and the Hiryū.” As he named each ship, its respective holo icon lit up.

“Ten frigates,“ He continued, “Agarthia, Valin, Gratia, Bekmon, Kalles, Ortis, Ordes, Kellamon, Cavras, and the Farnraz.” The frigates lit up and appeared in a protective circle around the carriers on the holomap, “And finally, our flagship, the cruiser: Feroses.” The cruiser appeared at the head of the formation.

“We will enter the system from the left side and continue on to the planet.” The ships moved in unison through one side of the broken ring of asteroids to hover in front of the planet. “From there we will disembark our transport shuttles and troops to begin evacuations. We expect some resistance from the local garrison, so a detachment of troops will be sent to assault the imperial’s base while the rest cover the evacuees.”

He paused for a second to look once more over the men and women gathered in the room, “We expect an Imperial fleet to arrive sometime after we do to begin their bombardment of the planet.” As he spoke numerous red triangles appeared on the same side of the map as the KED ships did.

“They will most likely move to the planet along the same trajectory as we did. Moving through the asteroids should slow them down enough for us to finish up our mission and escape from through the other side of the asteroid ring.” The red triangles moved in slowly toward the planet as the blue KED ships moved away in the opposite direction and out the other side of the broken asteroid ring.

The man stopped for a few moments staring at the map when Jay raised his hand. The man frowned slightly but said, “Go ahead.”

“Sir! Do we have a contingency in place if the Imperials decide to attack us from both sides sir?”

Gilkes’ eyes narrowed, “Excuse me?”

Jay shifted nervously, “Sorry sir, I must not have spoken clearly,” He paused to take in a breath before continuing, “It is conceivable that the Imperials, knowing the layout of our battleground, may decide to split their forces in half, and enter the system from either side of the asteroid ring.” He started pointing at each of the entrances to the planet.

“This would cut us off from both exits, so I was wondering what we should do in the event of this happening.”

Gilkes stared at him for a few moments, his mouth twisted into a frown, as the others in the room glanced back and forth between the two. “Well,” He started slowly, as he glanced down at Jay’s rank insignia. “Com-man-der, that wouldn’t make much sense. Deploying their fleet like that would greatly extend their deployment time by a couple of hours.

Besides that, standard imperial military doctrine is to strike hard, and strike fast with overwhelming numbers. It would cost them time, and weaken their attacking fleets enough that we might be able to punch out one side.”

Jay swallowed, “Yes sir, that is standard Imperial army tactics, but there is a chance they might send their sector fleets, and their tactics would be less rigid.”

Gilkes’ frown turned to a scowl, “Why would they send a sector fleet to do an army job.” His voice lowered into an annoyed growl, “No commander. The Imperial military is efficient, but predictable. My plan will work and it will be done that way.”

“Understood sir!” Jay replied.

Gilkes huffed, “We move out in an hour.”