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of that most precious of tactical advantages, communications superiority.
    The question was, would it be advantage enough?

Chapter 3

It is well that war is so terrible. Otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

    —General Robert E. Lee
    C.E. 1862

    Enhancing a portion of his vision, Dev peered past Eagle’s cloudscreen as the paths of the ship and the nanocloud diverged, getting his first good look at the facility that was their target.
    Daikokukichi was a roughly cross-shaped assembly of open girders and struts. Fuel and cryo-tanks, storage areas, and hab modules were mounted around the perimeter, while three massive hab modules rotated about the hub on arms to provide spin gravity. Second, third, and fourth levels housed nano storage chambers, pumping stations, and neat arrays of growth vats and molds, the station’s fitting and drawing yards; a fifth was devoted to zero-G derricks and gantry arms, to finishing hangars, berthing areas and docks, where finished or near-finished ships were moored. Running through the center of the structure was an axis, a long, spindle-shaped central core connecting a power plant module at one end with a control and communications center at the other. The defensive lasers—designed for meteor protection in this rubble-strewn system, but equally effective against marauding starships—were mounted outboard, on raised structures giving them the widest possible zones of clear fire.
    Captain Anders was figuratively looking over Dev’s shoulder at the same virtual reality display. “Big goker,” she said. “Commodore? You think they have close-in reserves, maybe hidden behind the planet?”
    Dev almost didn’t react to the unfamiliar title. He wasn’t used to the strictly honorary and unofficial promotion he’d been given when Travis Sinclair had put him in charge of this mission. The Confederation was still in the process of converting from the Nihongo rank structure employed for the past several centuries by the Hegemony, by resurrecting the system used by Western military forces before the Japanese ascendancy. Dev’s formal rank of naval captain, equivalent to an army colonel or the Imperial Hegemony taisa, was new and uncomfortable enough, but by a custom old before Man first had left the world of his birth, there could not be two captains aboard one ship. To be called commodore by people who had more experience at command than he did was unsettling.
    Ignoring the strangeness, he concentrated on the question. “If they have ships behind the planet, they’re powered down right now, or we’d see their neut emissions,” he told Lara. “Actually, this place looks a lot quieter than I was expecting.”
    “Our intel said that there’d be eight or ten capital ships in the Yards,” Lara agreed. “Not just four. I wonder where they are?”
    The question was a disturbing one. A handful of warships patrolled the outer marches of the Athenan system, but it would be hours yet before they knew anything was amiss, so vast were the distances within even such a pocket-sized star system as this. During the final moments of their approach the attackers had picked up four different energy sources that might be warships powering up, but there could well be others lurking nearby. In fact, the Impies should be keeping a small squadron close at hand for just such surprises as this, either docked at the shipyard itself or in near orbit. Where were they? What were they? If the Impie squadron included another destroyer or something larger, this raid would be one of the shortest and most inglorious on record.
    “Well, those ships in the docks are operational,” he told her. “Or they will be when they get their pods manned. But tell your scan personnel to keep their eyes open and their links clear. I don’t want anyone surprising us. And tell them to watch for nukes.”
    The greatest danger at this stage of the attack was that the enemy would toss a nuclear warhead at the warflyers. Cloudscreens