"And if those ships don't have crews to fly them?"

"We get our NOVA teams back, and we get the hell out of this system," Jackson said. "I'm not risking the Ares or the Icarus for sixteen aging warships that may not even be in any shape to fight."

As they waited for the Fourth Fleet ships to react, Jackson received a message from Daya Singh. Apparently, the Ares set a new Fleet record by coming to a complete relative stop from .35c in less than five hundred thousand kilometers in open space. Impressive. The crew was becoming more tense, more energized as the potential engagement neared.

"Captain, it looks like both groups are reducing velocity," Barrett said. "Thermals are picking up reverse thrust blooms from every ship, and radar confirms."

"Are they just slowing down?" Jackson frowned, punching in the commands to magnify that section of the main display.

"No, sir," Barrett said. "They're also angling in toward our current position, but not by much."

"Is there any indication they even saw the drone fly through their formation?" Jackson tapped his chin, a nervous habit he'd picked up recently for some reason.

"None that they've shown," Barrett said. "Not even the escort vehicles turned or slowed when it went through."

"Then this isn't actually their strategy. Helm! Maintain relative position. Zero thrust, station keeping thrusters only." Jackson turned to Davis. "We've caught them completely flat-footed. They're going to slow down and angle in to give themselves more time to react to anything we might do, but they're completely defensive right now."

"Could it be because they want to hold us here for some reason we can't yet see?" she asked.

"Possibly," Jackson conceded, "but unlikely. They're giving us too much time to think as well as far too many avenues of escape given our superior acceleration."

"This is the first thing even remotely close to a combat engagement any of them have ever seen, sir," Barrett said. "If they're going through what I did the first time, they're likely just overwhelmed."

"The more we observe their movements, the more we'll know about their intentions," Jackson said. "Continue monitoring all ships, and stay alert for any surprises they may be trying to spring on us."

"Aye, sir."

"Jam all the hatches except that one!" Amiri Essa shouted as all twenty-five members of the team piled into the large control room labeled "Master Docking Control."

At his command, four team members grabbed adhesive-backed thermite strips and, after sticking them on one side of the hatchway, slammed the hatches shut onto them. The impact and pressure activated the device, and sparks erupted from the four hatches almost simultaneously as they were welded shut by the intense heat.

"Only one way in or out now, sir," Rat said as they deployed around the remaining hatch in a loose defensive formation that allowed them to cover all the angles of approach while staying reasonably covered.

"Colt! Get to work!" Amiri waved away the noxious smoke created by the thermite strips.

Colt ran up with his tile and, pulling out a different lead than he'd used at their ingress point, established a hard connection with the long, multi-display terminal that lined the bulkhead on the far wall.

"Making connection now, sir," Colt said. "Releasing the docking overrides. They'll have control over all their systems and coms again shortly."

"Let's hope the crews are onboard and are ready to act." Amiri looked at his chronometer. "We've already been here far too long. Establish contact with the Ares as soon as you can. I have a feeling our original exfil is going to be a no-go."

"I'm on it." Rat moved to one of the unsecured terminals along the near bulkhead. "Let's hope these guys didn't secure the terminals before we subdued them."

When the NOVA team had approached the control room, there had been a lot of frantic conversation about the Ares acting aggressively toward their ships, but they seemed oblivious to the fact they'd been boarded. Amiri introduced himself with a pair of flash bang grenades and ten of his men rushing in to tape their mouths and put them in restraints.

Rat fumbled through the menus of the terminal. "I've dropped the localized jamming on the standard Fleet frequencies, sir. There's a repeating broadcast coming in for the ships in both battlegroups from a drone in high orbit. It's giving them orders and letting them know that we're about to release their ships."

"They should have figured that out already," Colt said. "The overrides have been dropped. All ship functions have been returned to the command crews."

"Rat, can you get me an open channel to the docked ships?" Amiri asked.

"Yes, sir." Rat ran through a few more menus before nodding to him.

"Seventh Fleet commanders, this is Lieutenant Commander Amiri Essa, NOVA Team Four. As you likely have noticed, we're in the process of securing your vessels' release. Please respond on this channel with your status and begin preparing your ships for flight. Time is of the essence, so brevity is appreciated," Amiri nodded for Rat to kill the channel. "Monitor that, and let me know what they have to say."

One by one, all the ships began checking in and confirming their orders, and after fifty minutes, Colt let him know that all but two ships had at least one reactor started and were starting on their primary flight systems. Things were going so smoothly that he wasn't surprised when a few shouts from the corridor beyond preceded small arms fire into the control room.

"Close that hatch!" Amiri shouted.

Now that some of Marines aboard were aware of their presence, it would only be a matter of time before they released their comrades and assaulted the room in force.

"Tech, keep working on getting those ships out of here," he said. "Rat, try to get word to the Ares and Team Six-"

An explosion against one of the welded hatches interrupted him.

"Sir?"

"Tell them Team Four is buster," Amiri said grimly. "We're not getting out of here."

Chapter 13.

"Captain, NOVA Team Four is pinned down in master docking control," Lieutenant Keller said. "They're releasing all the Black Fleet ships, but they aren't able to get to their exfil point. Apparently the Marines stationed on the shipyard have deployed to keep them from escaping."

"Major Ortiz to the bridge," Jackson said over the intercom, his jaw clenching in frustration. "Coms, try to raise Team Six and get an update from them."

"Do you think Team Six could get them out?" Davis asked.

"I'm completely certain of it," Jackson said. "But I'm not ready to order so many troops to their deaths. The NOVA teams would both lose people, and the Marines would almost certainly be wiped out. We're just trying to get back the ships that are ours, not declare war on New America in the process. Coms, get ready to transmit a secure text-only message to the Icarus."

"Standing by, sir," Keller said.

Celesta Wright had to read through the new order from Captain Wolfe twice to make sure she was completely certain she knew what he wanted. Any mistake in executing these orders would be an unmitigated disaster.

"Nav, how long until we're in orbit over DeLonges?" she asked.

"At current velocity, we'll achieve upper orbit in sixteen hours, ma'am."

"I need to shave at least ten hours off that time," Celesta said. "More would be better."

"Standby, ma'am." The specialist input new velocity numbers into his calculations. "A full burn for seventy-three minutes will get us there in approximately four and a half hours. We'll need to adjust our course to account for the increased velocity, and it will require a hard braking maneuver to make orbit."

"Helm, make it happen," Celesta ordered. "You're clear to engage the mains and enter course updates from navigation as they come."

"Ahead full, aye," the helmswoman said.

"The clock will start when the engines reach full power, Captain" her OPS officer said. "The thermal bloom from the mains will be visible to anyone looking."

"That can't be helped now." Celesta sat back in her chair. "We were a contingency action that was just activated."

"May I be so bold as to ask what the plan is, Captain?" her XO squirmed slightly in his seat.

"For right now, I'd rather not make that information generally available," Celesta said evasively. "Let's just get this ship into position, and then we'll worry about that."

"Of course, Captain."

"We're running this all on timing with a ship on the other side of the system and no open coms," Jackson griped aloud as he watched the main display.

The Fourth Fleet ships had redeployed into staggered picket lines, forming a funnel into an obvious corridor between them. It was such a pathetically obvious tactic that he began thinking they had something else they planned to spring on him.

"There's some slop in the timing though, sir," Davis said. "The com lag will work in our favor on this as long as those ships don't hesitate when they get the call."

"Lots of ifs' in there, Lieutenant." Jackson raised an eyebrow. "But we have to be unorthodox since we're only two ships against an armada. Hopefully, this won't end up-"

"The Icarus has just showed up on sensors, Captain," Barrett said. "She's lit up like a beacon, full active sensors and all transponders are pinging."

"Good, good," Jackson said. "Commander Wright was able to get into position on time. Nav, get me a course that takes us down on a close pass of the shipyards."

"Aye, sir."

"The picket ships will have spotted the Icarus over DeLonges by now," Davis said. "How long until they react?"

"Coms, let me know when the first distress calls come in from the planet," Jackson said, ignoring Davis. They only had to wait around thirty minutes before the first panicked, open channel broadcasts came from DeLonges about a Black Fleet ship attacking them from orbit.

"Helm! Ahead full!" Jackson barked. "Engage auxiliary boosters. Let's kick her in the ass."

"Ahead full, aye!" the helmsman said gleefully, slamming the throttle forward and flipping up the controls for the auxiliary boosters. Jackson was pressed back into his seat momentarily as the deck shuddered from the engines at full power and the solid-fuel auxiliary engines ignited.

The auxiliary boosters were four relatively simple, solid rocket motors mounted in the stern, but unlike virtually every other solid fuel motor, they were able to be throttled. The fuel and oxidizer were pelletized and fed at high speed into the combustion chambers at variable rates, giving Jackson incredible flexibility when needing to augment the Ares's max performance acceleration profiles.

"Tactical, feed course corrections directly to the helm," Jackson said. "Let's hit that gap hard. Nav, be ready to jump in and get us in position to fly by the shipyards at the proper speed, altitude, and orientation."

He received a chorus of affirmative responses as he watched the green icon of the Ares bearing down on the picket ships at an acceleration that very few people in Fleet knew she was capable of. He smiled tightly as he imagined the chaos taking place on the bridges of the Fourth Fleet ships.

"We've been captured by DeLonges's gravity, Captain," Specialist Cortez reported from the nav station. "The Icarus is in a stable, high geosync as ordered."

"Thank you." Celesta took in a breath before her next order. "Tactical, bring all weapon systems online, and quick charge the forward laser battery." The lieutenant at tactical looked over his shoulder at her, but to his credit (and hers) began executing the order without any comment or complaint.

"Forward battery is fully charged and primed. All projectors deployed," he said. "Missiles and point defense will be up momentarily, and the auto-mag power bank is at fifty percent."

"Belay that," Celesta said. "Laser batteries and point defense only."

"Aye aye, ma'am. Weapons are deployed and ready, Captain."

Celesta looked around and, while she saw confusion and concern, she didn't detect any distrust in the looks the bridge crew gave her. She allowed herself a fleeting moment of pride that they trusted her and assumed that she was doing the right thing.

"Tactical, give me a firing solution into the upper atmosphere of DeLonges," she said. "I want it terminating out over the ocean and with a zero percent chance of damage to the surface. Maximum power."

"Firing solution calculated and locked in, Captain," the tactical officer said with obvious relief.

"Fire."

The four massive laser projectors that had deployed from the nose of the Icarus opened up, their beams invisible in space but wreaking havoc as they intersected the water vapor of the upper atmosphere. She knew the vapor trails would be clearly seen in the early evening over the capital, and the sonic booms of the shockwaves created by the flash-heated water droplets would echo across the continent.

"Keep firing," Celesta ordered. "Adjust your firing solution to ensure the safety of the population. We're just putting on a bit of a show."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We're approaching their maximum assumed weapons range," Lieutenant Hayashi said.

"If they wanted to hit us, they would have needed to fire well before now," Jackson said. "But let's keep the point defense active anyway, Tactical. How long until we're through the formations?"

"One hour, twenty-seven minutes," Hayashi said.

"Helm, shut down the auxiliary boosters," Jackson ordered. "OPS, tell engineering to purge the fuel lines and secure the booster engines. Do we have any movement from the opposing ships?"

He'd intentionally not referred to them as the "enemy" during the engagement. He needed to get the Black Fleet ships out of dock and out to the Frontier, but he flatly refused to escalate hostilities with his fellow humans. He just hoped his slapdash plan of surprise and misdirection would keep the Fourth Fleet commanders on their heels long enough for him to minimize the collateral damage.

The Ares, still accelerating under full power, shot through the formation of Fourth Fleet ships that had been drifting loosely just outside the orbit of the fifth planet. The helmsman automatically began reducing power and altering their course to intercept New Sierra while the ships they'd just zipped past began to turn and accelerate ponderously toward DeLonges.

"The entire formation is heading to DeLonges?" Jackson asked in disbelief.

"It appears so, sir," Barrett said. "I think they know they wouldn't be able to mount a pursuit given our velocity."

"That makes little sense, Mr. Barrett," Jackson said. "It will take them even longer to get to DeLonges, and they've given us a clear path to attack the shipyards-the only thing of strategic value in this system. Why would they..." He trailed off and narrowed his eyes as he looked at the tactical display.

"Sir?"

"Coms, get in contact with Lieutenant Commander Essa's team," Jackson said. "Ask him if the ship yard's automated defense systems have been reactivated. Helm, maintain course and speed."

"Aye, sir."

It took over an hour to get a response from their query given the communication lag from the distance and the fact that NOVA Team Four was still trying to defend its position inside the control room.