Wayne's judgment was certainly reasonable. But as for what they could—or should—do next, even he had no concrete plan to offer.
"Let's do some more reconnaissance. If the Empire really is using the New Continent Highway to threaten the Southern Heavenly Gate, we have a duty to determine roughly how large their fleet is," Michiel Kent said.
It was an assessment that, at the very least, couldn't be wrong. After all, reconnaissance was their mission to begin with.
But now that they were actually here, continuing their reconnaissance mission was becoming more and more difficult. Wayne even felt that sneaking closer to the New Continent Highway to investigate was more dangerous than the game of cat and mouse they'd played in the Dawn Nebula.
The fleet had originally planned to shadow the Fire God Airan, but as soon as they reached the Iris Cross System, they discovered a high-speed strike force composed of Dreadnoughts, armored assault carriers, and battlecruisers standing by there for routine maintenance.
Needless to say, the Commonwealth's forward space station, built here during the War of Judgement, had fallen a whole year ago. It had since been converted into a dry dock and hangar.
Assault ships and Zidian Dragon fighters patrolled the system like hunting dogs, exuding an air of loyal brutality.
Wayne's fleet apologized for the intrusion and retreated the way they'd come. Then they took a different branch route and hid themselves away for several days. At their most perilous, they were genuinely surrounded by enemy detachments numbering three times their own strength.
The one bright spot was that most of the enemy forces were Imperial auxiliaries, and their coordination was less than perfect. When Wayne's fleet threw itself into a desperate charge, ignoring everything around them and pressing straight ahead, they quickly tore a