The fleets, despite being separated by light hours, simultaneously brought their gravity engines to full power and accelerated through the border of the solar system.

Aboard the TSF Proxima.

Prepare for maneuvering, Fleet Admiral of the Red Marco Bianchi ordered, then settled back in his chair, his job as the fleet admiral complete.

The captain of the cityship echoed the fleet admirals command, but his job was just beginning.

The cityship he commanded was colossal, measuring a full forty kilometers in diameter. It almost had to be; not only was it a mothership capable of containing thousands of other ships, ranging from the kilometers-long drone tenders to the hundred-meter length of the humble corvettes, they were also space-capable cities. They were designed to land on planets and would instantly become full, if small, fortress cities to kickstart colonization.

And once Aron had earned enough SP to upgrade to wormhole FTL tech, they would also act as mobile wormhole generators.

So, all in all, the cityships were some of the most capable in the entire Terran Space Fleet, but they had one weakness: mobility. They could zip around in straight lines like no other, with the enormous reactor and capacitor banks pushing their gravity engines to insane levels of performance, but stopping on a dime and turning while in motion were both maneuvers they were simply not built for.

It was nobodys fault but the laws of physics. The immense mass of the cityships would require much higher levels in materials science than Lab City had yet reached. Attempting high-speed maneuvers or rapid deceleration would simply tear the ships apart. It wasnt so much that they were fragile, because they definitely were anything but flimsy, but because the shearing force applied to the ships during high-speed maneuvering was simply too overwhelming for even the best materials the researchers in Lab City had come up with to date.

Prepared for maneuvering, aye, sir, the helmsman responded as he brought the immense gravity generator up to its normal operational limit.

Weapons, report status, the captain ordered.

All green, Captain. Point defense tracks and debris tractors report ready.

Due to the maneuverability issues faced by the cityships of the Terran Space Fleet, passing through a relatively object-dense area like the Oort Cloud had to be done carefully. The speed at which the objects moved was incredible, but the speed the cityships could reach while still maintaining at least a modicum of maneuverability... wasnt.

Thus, not only did the helmsman need to pay attention to maneuvering and speed, but the weapons officer had to be prepared to deflect or eliminate any rogue object that the helmsman couldnt dodge. That said, it was still reasonably stress free, as while the universal simulation couldnt simulate the randomness of life, it was more than capable of charting courses through danger zones like the asteroid belts and the Oort Cloud.

Still, John had been raised on the philosophy of train like you mean to fight and the TSF would often be operating outside real-time communication ranges, so the procedure had been set to assume that they would never have access to the simulation.

Helm, ahead half, the captain ordered.

Ahead half, aye, sir, the helmsman replied, then pushed the engines to 50% of their full speed.

The TSF Proxima had begun her journey to interstellar space. And as though they were synchronized with an atomic clock, the other four cityships on their exploration missions simultaneously leapt into motion as well.

Course plotted and autopilot engaged, Captain, the helmsman announced and a low murmur swept across the bridge.

Point defenses released to automatic, Captain, the weapons officer yelled over the din of conversation.

The captains expression grew stern. Can the chatter, ladies and gentlemen. Do your jobs, he growled.

The hum of conversation died down, people at the various stations on the bridge exchanging glances with each other.

Space was inherently dangerous, especially danger zones like nebulas and asteroid fields. And even though the autopilot was run by the ships AI, there was always a chance that a rogue asteroid or debris from two objects colliding nearby would impact the ship. Given the armor and redundancies built into each vessel, small impacts like thateven when dealing with the extreme speeds the ships were capable of reaching wouldnt be likely to cripple or destroy any of the heavier ships of the line in the TSF, but it could put them behind schedule as they would be forced to stop to repair the damage.

Yes, every ship in the TSF and TEF had shields, but hardware had limitations. Each impact on those shields would reduce the lifespan of the shield generators themselves, so in order to maintain the highest state of combat readiness they could, the shield generators wouldnt be online during routine maneuvering. After all, why would they take the damage that could be avoided simply by slowing down to a reasonable acceleration and top speed?

Fleet Admiral Bianchi nodded approvingly. He came from a long line of sailors that stretched all the way back to when Italy was still a hodgepodge of city-states. His ancestors had salt in their veins and the sea in their hearts, having sailed ever since the glassmakers of Venice peddled their wares at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. And that tradition had carried through the centuries, with a Bianchi at the helm of everything from coasters to the enormous cargo vessels in the empires merchant marine.

Now, a Bianchi had stepped out into the vastness of space to command an entire fleet on his own. The responsibility weighed heavily on the mans shoulders, but the pride in his spine refused to let him bow under the weight and kept him standing firm on the shoulders of centuries-long tradition.

Captain, you have the bridge. Ill be in the flag bridge, he said.

Yes, Admiral. I have the bridge, the captain replied, and the admiral left the bridge.

The captain turned his attention inward to the augmented reality display generated by his quantum microcomputer implant. The ships structure itself seemed to vanish, leaving him feeling like he was the one moving through space, not the ship he was on. He entered an almost meditative state as he gazed out into the vastness of the universe, awed and humbled by his insignificance in the face of the void.