Warworld: The Lidless Eye by John F. Carr, Don Hawthorne

of Albert Einstein ended and the physics of revisionist Dan Alderson began, a tramline existed, along which ships with the Alderson Drive could leap with very little effort from star to star.
    That Point now shifted, its substance altered slightly, and the near emptiness of space was filled with several hundred thousand cubic tons displacement of starship.
    Strapped into an acceleration couch on the bridge was Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger of the Sauron Fleet heavy cruiser Fomoria . He stirred slightly in the command seat, waiting for the lag effect of the latest Alderson Jump to wear off. As his vision cleared, Diettinger realized he could make out some of the details of the bridge surrounding him. Fire had blackened much of the room, while smoke still drifted lazily in the red glow of the combat lights.
    Somehow, they had made it. In Diettinger’s mind was an image of the Homeworld as they had jumped. Firestorms and mushroom clouds pockmarked the land. Even the seas churned as the Imperial warships sought out the undersea cities. A great red gash ran along the equatorial continent as the Imperial assaults split the planet’s crust, while in the sky above the bright lights of the Homeland’s hopelessly outnumbered fleet pulsed as each ship died. All but one.
    Diettinger stood, stretched, and stepped down on wobbling legs to stand behind Second Rank.
    It was quickly ascertained that a supernova explosion had caused a failure in the random Jump procedure that he’d used to set the course during their journey to the Wayforth Alderson tramline. Second Rank had speculated: “Theorists at the university speculate that a supernova explosion would produce extreme amounts of Alderson force, causing temporary super-long tramlines to form.” She further theorized that the Alderson disruption must have affected every Alderson tramline within the Empire of Man, meaning that—for now—the Fomoria had successfully evaded their Imperial pursuers.
    Whatever the cause, the result was that they had landed in an unknown system hundreds of light-years away from the Comstock Alderson Point they had been aiming for. He ordered: “Summon Weapons and Engineering to the bridge; wardroom meeting of all command ranks in ten minutes.”
    Second Rank Althene began calling the various personnel at their jump stations.
    “Positional fix,” he said to the Navigation officer beyond Second Rank’s duty station. Navigation shook his head.
    “Nothing yet, Dicta—Sorry, nothing yet, First Rank. Very low energy emission signals from the system overall. Looks like a real backwater.”
    Diettinger frowned. Good, and not good. A place to repair and refit the Fomoria would have been ideal, but would likely be heavily defended as well. And they had no strength to secure such. Next best thing wouldhave been an area in which they could hide, and this system seemed to fill the bill nicely. But after their escape from three squadrons of Imperial heavy fighters, that would mean two pieces of extreme good fortune in a very short time.
    Diettinger might believe in luck, but he did not trust that much of it at one time.
    The hatch behind him opened, and Engineering stepped through. The Weapons officer accompanying him was bleeding from an arm wound—not serious. Few injuries that did not kill a Sauron outright were.
    “Position identified, sir.” Navigation announced.
    “Speak.”
    “The Haven System is unusual in every way. Haven, the moon of the gas giant, is the only settled body. Byers IV—generally known as the Cat’s Eye—is located far outside the normal habitable zone for a G2 star; but being approximately one-point-three Jupiter masses, the gas giant provides sufficient radiant energy to keep much of Haven marginally tolerable.
    “The moon is an old CoDominium relocation colony, Imperial since the Earth Exodus. We’re really on the fringes, sir. Files show no Imperial presence in this area of the Sector for almost a decade. The last