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.
