“What is the major problem for us?” Instead of answering the question directly Jean asked a question.

Nova thought about this. The Dominion outnumbered the rebel forces. It was just a matter of time before they push through. “Heavy casualties.” She concluded. “Davis can just jump away anytime she wanted. No doubt she had already plotted the coordinates for her next destination. We can’t stop her.”

Jean nodded and glanced at a camera. The elite wraith strike team was being reduced to half its previous number and counting. “If Davis escapes then this battle will give us nothing but casualties. We need to take over the rebel ships to make the sacrifices worthy.”

“But Davis can jump away.”

“How much do you know about warp space?” Jean asked another question.

”What do you know about warp space?”

“Ships with warp drive can enter a warp space that allows faster than light travel. It is how all the races travel through this vast sector.”

“And the danger?”

“Well, if the coordinates aren’t accurate enough the ship could be jumping to nowhere. If the ship crashes into something in warp space it will be destroyed. If there is something in the direction of the ship about to jump the ship can’t jump. If it tries to jump the ship will be destroyed.” Nova reasoned before suddenly realizing something. “Did you just…”

“Yes I did.” Jean said to Nova’s astonishment.

On the other side Davis keenly noticed the Dominion ships were closing in. Rebel ships were being pushed back and were closing into an orb. There wasn’t any response from Phantom Squadron. They were losing, but just as Nova was saying the rebels could leave anytime they wanted.

Davis gave one last look at the Dominion ships. Over fifty rebel battlecruisers have gone down in the battle. The loss of fighters was ten times that number. And yet Davis got what she wanted. She still had a fleet that could get back into battle after a mere stop, and the Dominion suffered heavy losses as well. Davis had made her point. Now all she had to do was jump to somewhere safe and negotiate with Valerian. After this tough battle Valerian would reconsider his militant ways. Negotiation was the only thing he could do if he couldn’t locate or destroy the rebel fleet.

All the fighters that survived the exchange returned to the capital ships. The rebel ships were getting closer and closer to each other. The general knew if she wanted to jump she needed to do it now. Wait for a few minutes and the battlecruisers would be blocking each other’s path. Entering warp space needed an open area before the ships.

“Jump to the assigned coordinates.” Davis sat back in her cozy chair. Her flagship would jump first. Then the Gorgons. Finally the Minotaur battlecruisers. The later the jump, the less value and the more easily sacrificed the ships were. But a few seconds later the familiar feeling of entering warp space didn’t happen. She was still in the heated battle field with Dominion ships closing in.

“Report! Why aren’t we jumping?” Davis demanded. Another Minotaur class battlecruiser had fallen at the hands of two Yamato cannons. If the rebel fleet remained here they would be chewed away one by one.

“Something’s in our way!” A lieutenant replied loudly. “I think…I think it’s the debris. They’re in our way. We can’t jump!” He sounded doubtful and surprised as he tapped the control panel. “None of the other Gorgons could jump. They’ve all being blocked!”

In front of the Gorgon battlecruisers were piles of floating debris. They were the only remains of the twenty mercenary battlecruisers that perished here a while ago. Neither Davis nor her captains saw the potential dangers of these scattered debris. After all, debris were common in the battlefield. Even a Yamato cannon couldn’t evaporate an entire battlecruiser. Any nukes that might be present on the ships would be destroyed or set off by the bombardment. These debris were harmless, so the rebels kept them around as trophies. But now the trophies had became the sharpest blades that was stuck into the heart of the rebels.

“What the hell?” Davis said with utter disbelief. For a moment everything made sense. The Dominion commander wasn’t an idiot. Valerian Mengks didn’t trust the wrong man/woman. In fact, she was a cold calculating commander. Her method was somewhat unorthodox, but it was effective. It was so simple not that Davis knew the plan, but it didn’t change the fact that no one in the rebel fleet saw it.

Engage the rebel fleet headon as a distraction. Use the overwhelming Dominion forces to win the space battle. Sacrifice the mercenary fleets to place the debris in front of the Gorgon battlecruisers. Make her think she could leave whenever she wanted. When the rebel fleet was surrounded and wanted to jump away it was too late. She fell right into it.

Davis had wondered why the enemy commander would give up twenty battlecruisers instead of sending them to flank the rebel fleet from behind. Now she knew why.

“General?” The lieutenant asked. Davis looked up and saw all the crew members on the bridge were looking at her. They seemed worried and even frightened, and they were looking at their general for command. “General?”

Davis had faced several defeats before, which helped her to calm down in this dire situation. “Fire all gun batteries at those debris!” She knew very well the debris wouldn’t be cleared off in time. Laser batteries, missiles, and even nukes couldn’t reduce the armored fragments to pieces small enough that allowed a safe entry into warp space in time. Perhaps a void ray could melt the metals quicker, but terran weapons didn’t have the same overkill effect. Of course, Davis could order the entire fleet to focus fire on the debris before her flagship and clear a way for herself, but if she did that she would lose the majority of her fleet and all but one of her Gorgons. Without her fleet Davis was nothing. And yet she gave the order. As a commander Davis knew if she was overcome by fear then so would the crew members. No matter what she thought or felt she needed to be calm. Giving out that futile order made the crew members and other ships think they still had a chance.

Davis might be a power hungry and cold calculating woman, but her tactical skill was not to be undermined.

At this point the old general knew she was pretty much dead. There was no escape. But even so she didn’t want that Valerian boy to inherit the entire Dominion fleet without heavy losses. She would fight to the end, and she wasn’t afraid to bring the rest of the rebel fleet, over 200 battlecruisers and hundreds of thousands of former Dominion soldiers and god knew how many Dominion ships and men down with her.