A day later, the expedition fleet left Helion Bastion Twelve.

There was no ceremony.

Aurelian did not like wasting time on that sort of thing, and no one in the fleet needed a speech to understand what they were about to do.

The ships moved out in a controlled formation, wearing their temporary false markings and softened light patterns.

The disguise was not perfect up close, but it was never meant to survive careful inspection.

It only needed to confuse early reports, make distant scans look messy, and give the Kharov one more wrong answer to argue over before they understood the truth.

The transports looked rougher than the warships, with uneven markings and mismatched hull patterns that made them seem like they belonged to a desperate raider band rather than a disciplined force.

The captured Kharov merchant ship looked miserable in exactly the way Vaeren had approved. Worn, tired, common, and easy to ignore.

Rhoswen had looked at the whole fleet before departure and said, "Still needs skulls."

Aurelian had not even turned around.

"No."

That was the end of it.

Their route led straight toward Mournveil.

From a distance, the nebula looked almost peaceful, layers of silver-gray dust and faint light stretched across the dark like mist caught between stars.

It was beautiful in a cold way, but Aurelian did not mistake beauty for safety. Lysara’s reports had made that clear enough.

Storm pockets, interference fields, beast routes, and enough blind spots to make careless movement dangerous.

Still, it was the best path they had.

The fleet entered Mournveil under strict timing.

Lysara guided the route from the front, her earlier scouting work now proving its worth.

Eirenne’s sub-core rode with Neris, feeding route corrections, storm warnings, and formation guidance through secure channels.

Neris held the support structure steady, making sure no ship drifted out of line or burned more fuel than expected.

Solenne kept her carrier wings cold and ready, while Rhoswen stayed far more obedient than usual, mostly because there was a real battle waiting at the end, and she did not want to risk being pulled back for acting like a fool.

The trip through the nebula took several days.

That was normal for deep-space movement. Battles between star systems did not begin the moment someone made a decision. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Even with strong engines and clean routes, distance had weight. The farther a force moved, the more every little mistake mattered.

Aurelian used the travel time properly.

He trained when he could, reviewed the final attack plans, checked the rear reports from Astra and Astercourt, and went over Eirenne’s network intrusion plan several times.

The rear was stable.

Haven remained quiet.

The bastion was operating cleanly.

The Thornwake sisters were still under repair, and Maelis had shown steady improvement after the first overhaul pass.

That was good. He had no intention of pulling them into this fight, but knowing they were recovering properly made the earlier effort feel settled.

On the fifth day, the fleet passed through the final marked corridor inside Mournveil and reached the quiet exit system Lysara had found.

There was still no Kharov presence.

No patrol.

No station traffic.

No signs of anyone watching the place closely.

Aurelian did not relax, but the confirmation mattered.

The fleet slowed in the shadow of the system’s outer debris belt, hidden well enough that no casual scan from the Kharov cluster should catch them.

Beyond that point lay the target: the four-star cluster the Kharov had been developing, a region full of inhabited worlds, resource traffic, military stations, and enough scattered forces to make it valuable without being properly unified.

That was the opening.

If the Kharov had held their fleets together, Aurelian would not have attacked this way.

But they had not.

The first stage of the operation began there.

The captured merchant ship was released from the transport bay.

It looked pathetic drifting out alone, exactly as planned. Its false transponder woke up. Its forged route data settled into place.

Eirenne took direct control through the sub-core, and the small vessel started toward the Kharov cluster at a speed that was just slightly better than what a ship of its class should have managed.

Not too fast.

Not too slow.

Just enough to look like some merchant captain had spent too much money on a better engine and not enough on hull maintenance.

Lysara shadowed it for part of the approach under her stealth-linked armor and careful emissions control, not close enough to be obvious, but near enough to intervene if something strange happened before the merchant ship reached its target.

Once the vessel crossed the last safe point, she released it fully and withdrew.

From that moment on, the fake merchant ship moved alone.

Everyone waited.

That was the part Aurelian disliked most, though he did not show it. A plan like this always had an awkward stretch where everything depended on a small, ugly piece moving slowly through enemy space while much stronger ships sat hidden and did nothing.

Rhoswen clearly hated it more.

She paced twice before Neris finally looked up and said, "You are making everyone else more tense."

"I’m fine," Rhoswen said.

"You are not quiet."

"I didn’t say I was quiet."

Eirenne’s projection appeared beside the tactical display. "The merchant ship has entered outer traffic acknowledgment range."

That ended the side conversation at once.

The Kharov response was slower than Aurelian expected.

A traffic beacon pinged them.

A simple identity check followed.

The merchant ship returned its forged information.

Then nothing happened for several minutes.

Rhoswen stared at the display. "Did they miss it?"

Eirenne’s answer was calm. "No. They are simply slow."

Eventually, the Kharov starport responded and assigned a docking path.

No serious inspection.

No armed escort.

No further verification beyond a routine registration packet, which Eirenne handled so cleanly that the system accepted it without even flagging the delay.

Neris watched the exchange with mild disbelief.

"That was easier than it should have been."

"Yes," Eirenne said.

"You sound offended."

"I am."

The fake merchant ship moved closer to the starport, docked under guidance from an automated pilot drone, and linked into the local port network for cargo registration.

That was all Eirenne needed.

For one second, nothing changed.

Then the Kharov network, which had everything about them, slowly started to open its doors for their enemies.