The starboard access tube was nearly deserted as he hustled over to the set of lifts that would take him directly back to the command deck. He had to relieve Davis so she could get some rest before second watch started, and he wanted to make sure Barrett wasn't pulling his usual game of lying about how long he'd been on duty so he didn't have to leave the bridge.

As the doors to the lift slid shut, he was momentarily overcome with sadness at the thought of the two young officers. They'd already been through so much ,and he had a bad feeling much more sacrifice would be required before the fight was over.

"The drone is now twelve hours overdue, Captain," Lieutenant Davis informed Jackson as he walked onto the bridge just ahead of first watch.

"Overdue for a check in," Jackson corrected. "That could be a host of issues, especially using a tight beam com laser."

"Sir, I have our forward optical sensor's bandwidth filtered and looking specifically for the beam's wavelength," Barrett said.

"We're in space, Lieutenant Commander." Jackson tried to hide his irritation. "If the beam doesn't hit us or refract off something else, it could pass within a few hundred meters of this ship, and you'd never see it."

"Understood, sir," Barrett said, unruffled. "But if we don't respond, the drone has been programmed to sweep the com laser in a grid pattern until we acquire each other. In twelve hours, I have to think that we'd have seen some trace of it."

"What's your working theory right now, Mr. Barrett?" Jackson asked.

"I'm picking up a lot of residual light from that planet that fits the bill for short-range LIDAR," Barrett said, referring to a detection system that worked on the same principle of radar but utilized reflected laser energy rather than radio waves. "I think they've got a detection grid in place, and they saw the drone as it came in for a close pass."

"You think they took out a Jacobson drone that very obviously belongs to a Fleet ship?" Jackson pressed.

"Yes, sir."

"And you agree with his assessment, Lieutenant Davis?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well then." Jackson sat. "Let's go see if we can find the pieces. OPS, reconfigure main engines for normal flight. Nav, plot a course down into the system. Give me the most direct route to the fourth planet. Don't worry about getting cute with any grav assists or bother trying to save propellant."

"Course is plotted and sent to the helm, sir," the specialist at nav reported.

"Helm, engage on new course," Jackson ordered. "Ahead one half with a target velocity of .10c."

"Ahead one half, aye," the helmsman said.

"Nav, how long until we make orbit with our current acceleration profile?" Jackson asked.

"Just over forty hours, sir," Specialist Accari said. "Give me a moment to account for the initial acceleration curve."

"Don't bother, Specialist," Jackson said. "Helm, ahead three quarters until you reach .35c. Nav, we'll need a more aggressive decel profile to make orbit. Make sure the helm has that as soon as possible."

"Working it now, sir. Time to target has been reduced to just over twelve hours," Accari said.

"Lieutenant Davis, you're relieved," Jackson told her. "Bridge crew is now on split shifts. I want the full first watch crew in their seats an hour before we begin decel."

"Aye aye, sir." Davis checked to see how much time she had to get some rest and practically ran off the bridge.

"If any of you need to call your reliefs up from your work centers, don't be shy about it," Jackson said. "I expect everyone to be at their very best when we begin braking for orbit."

A few operators looked at each other and then back to the captain as if to see if they were about to walk into a trap. When Jackson only looked over some reports on his terminal and mostly ignored them, a few grabbed their comlinks and called for relief so they could get some rack time before any potential engagements over the mysterious planet.

Jackson continued reading over the very dry technical bulletins his department heads had sent up as well as the equally mind-numbing readiness and training reports on the crew. Couple that with the steady, soft rumble of the mains throttled up to seventy-five percent, and he was ready for the first coffee of his watch before the second hour had passed.

He had barely made it back to the chair from the coffee machine at the back of the bridge when the ensign sitting at the com station turned to him, her face a mask of confusion. "Captain, I'm getting a video channel request for you personally via tight-beam laser. It's classified eyes-only.'"

Jackson frowned at that. They were certainly close enough to the planet for them to reach out with a com beam if they really boosted the power. Maybe they had a relay drone somewhere in the system they couldn't detect with the passive sensors.

"Lock the channel down, and send it to my office," Jackson said. "Lieutenant Commander Barrett, you have the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

Jackson jogged the short span to the small office and activated his terminal, not bothering to close the hatch. He wasn't prepared for the face on the other end.

"Wolfe, what in the fuck are you doing in this system?" CENTCOM Chief of Staff Joseph Marcum asked, his face a reddish purple.

"I was about to ask something similar, sir." Jackson refused to wilt under his superior's glare. "This system seems to not exist on any Fleet survey I can find. Imagine my surprise when I found a fully developed colony world here."

"I'm not even going to ask how you found out about this," Marcum said with disgust. "It was that idiot, Allrest... had to be."

"What's going on here, sir?" Jackson asked. "What is this place?"

"Do you need everything spelled out for you, Wolfe?" Marcum asked, his voice dripping with scorn. "I can never tell if you're the smartest person I've ever met or just another dumbass, lucky-as-hell Earther who doesn't have a damn clue what's going on around him. What do you think this is?"

"It looks to me like a lot of resources wasted while two more Frontier worlds are ready to fall, sir." Jackson watched carefully for a reaction from Marcum. He counted until he saw the chief of staff roll his eyes, wrote the number of seconds down on the tile in front of him, divided it in half, and then multiplied it by the constant. It wasn't exact, but it was good enough to roughly range the source of the signal.

"So I guess it's the latter," Marcum said. "You can't possibly be this naive. You know as well as I do that Podere and Nuovo Patria are as good as gone. The Phage will rush into those systems and take them with overwhelming numbers. What good does it do us if half of Starfleet is wiped out with them?"

"So we don't even mount a defense?" Jackson checked his numbers once again and then discreetly keyed in a general alert. He typed in a message to Barrett to signal general quarters but to silence the alarms on the command deck. "Sir, I can't accept that we're just going to abandon tens of millions of people."

"We're playing the long game, Wolfe," Marcum said. "This planet is meant as the final holdout for our species. By now you must have come to the same conclusions we have. We cannot win against the Phage with our current technology and numbers. It takes us half a year to build a destroyer and takes them four weeks to grow an Alpha. We lose a ship, and we're out an entire well-trained crew. They lose a construct and use the remains to build more in a few days. We have no answer for this enemy. Does it really make sense to waste our entire military might in a futile effort to defend a single planet? Or does it make more sense to accept the fact that there will be terrible losses in this war and try to ensure humanity survives at all?"

Jackson hated to admit it, but Marcum had a point. If there was simply no possible way to win, why sacrifice the entire species? But there was also the part of him that knew the Phage weren't invulnerable, and that if Allrest was right, and they were highly intelligent, there must be some threshold after which they decide a fight isn't worth the cost of winning.

"I almost see what you're thinking," Marcum said. "Yes, you've killed a lot of Phage... Has it made a difference? Before you transitioned in, we received word that they were massing in the Podere system in greater numbers than we'd ever seen before in one place."

"I'm not arguing that your point is invalid, sir." Jackson looked at his tile as a message popped up, telling him the crew was at their stations and ready. "But you still haven't answered my question about what this planet is. Allrest called it the Ark, and I can see you're taking special care not to risk radio emissions... so is this an elaborate contingency plan... or a lifeboat for the rich and powerful?"

"Call it both." Marcum shrugged. "When we see how the Phage act after they've taken Nuovo Patria, we'll know for certain what this planet's ultimate purpose will be. We'd always planned on brining the Ninth Squadron here before any real fighting began. Wasting five Starwolf-class ships in a blaze of glory made little sense. I tried to have you held up at New Sierra, but you managed to defuse that one far quicker than I would have thought."

Jackson frowned, but not at the thinly veiled insult. Marcum was stalling him.

"You are so easy to read, Captain." Marcum chuckled humorlessly. "Yes, I'm trying to tie you up for a few more minutes, and yes, I'm very close. I can already tell that you won't see reason. You're full of righteous anger and, unfortunately, have maybe begun to believe in your own inflated legend. I'm sorry, but we can't risk you leaving here."

The channel hadn't even gone fully dark by the time Jackson was out of his seat and sprinting for the bridge.

"Full active scan! Now!" he shouted as he flung himself into his seat.

Barrett didn't hesitate, bringing the Ares's high-power radar array online and scanning local space.

"Contact!" he called out. "Close contact! Two unknown ships on an intercept course, forward port side, flying on the ecliptic. Range is just over 1.25 million kilometers."

"Helm, come to starboard forty-five degrees," Jackson ordered. "All ahead full."

"Helm answering starboard turn. Ahead full, aye."

"Tactical, build me a profile on those two ships," Jackson said.

"Yes, sir," Barrett said. "I can tell you they don't match any class of ship in the registry, and they're very big. Battleship-size big."

"A new class of battleship we haven't heard about?" Davis asked from the OPS station.

"Possibly," Barrett answered. "Engine output and power levels are both way too high to be anything but. At least if Tanaka's newly installed sensors are to be believed."

"What are they doing?" Jackson watched the tactical display begin to populate as the active sensors mapped the system.

"They've matched our acceleration and are angling over to maintain a direct intercept course," Barrett said. "We've increased our interval marginally."

"They're herding us," Jackson said. "I'll bet they hang back until whatever other forces they have in the system have a chance to move out and cut us off. Then they'll close the gap and start pushing us into them."

"Incoming com request," Lieutenant Keller said. "Standard fleet frequency, but it's using a high-level CIS encryption. I'll need your approval for this one, sir."

"Is it from one of those battleships?" Jackson asked as he authorized the decryption with a biometric reading from his terminal.

"Negative, sir," Keller said. "Signal origin appears to be from near the fourth planet."

"Put it through."

"Fancy meeting you here, Captain." The unmistakable voice of Pike came over the bridge speakers.

"You certainly get around, Pike," Jackson said. "I hope you're not a player in this little party."

"You know me better than that." Pike laughed. "I caught wind of this little side project and flew in to investigate for my boss. By the way, Marcum has two more Dreadnought-class battleships sneaking around to pinch you in."

"I figured as much," Jackson said. "Glad to put a name to a face. Dreadnought isn't very subtle, but it's informative. When we're not running for our lives, you'll have to tell me all about how an entire new class of battleship was designed, built, and fielded with nobody knowing about it."

"It is an interesting story," Pike laughed. "But for now, I think I'll do a little running of my own. I'm transmitting you a copy of everything I have, and then I'm going dark. One of us should be able to make it out of here. Just so you're aware, there are six of those new boomers in this system right now, and they're surprisingly sneaky when they want to be. See you on the other side, Captain."

"Data stream coming in over the same channel, sir," Keller said.

"Compile and store it," Jackson said. "OPS, prepare a com drone. Copy Pike's information onto it, and then set a destination for Haven, and address it to Senator Wellington. Don't launch it unless I tell you."

"Yes, sir."

"The system just erupted with active radar scans, sir," Barrett said. "Two long-range tracking stations in a shallow heliocentric orbit just outside the fifth planet and both battleships behind us."

"Pike and I forced their hand," Jackson said. "They're going to try to end this quickly."

"Captain, the lead ship is demanding we heave to," Keller said. "We're to prepare for capture and boarding."

"Listen up! These people have no desire to fire upon this ship, nor to kill humans," Jackson said. "But their superiors aren't willing to let us leave this system. They know that CIS Broadhead transmitted a data package from the planet before it fled, so we're now the number one priority, and we can't simply disappear like our spook friend."

"Shall I arm our weapons, sir?" Barrett asked.

"Point defense only," Jackson said. "I don't want to provoke them. Nor do I have any delusions of our single destroyer taking on four new-generation battleships. Are they still pushing us?"

"Maintaining the same interval, sir," Barrett confirmed.

"And we can still only account for four of them?"

"Yes, sir."

"What's bothering you, Captain?" Davis said.

"This strategy would only work if we didn't know about the two ships ahead of us," Jackson said. "They have to know we're now aware of them, so it makes no sense that they're still pushing us along. We still have an open shot of space to the Columbiana jump point and a head start that they can't..." Jackson trailed off, staring at the main display as all the known tracks were continuously updated by the computer.

"Sir?"

"Helm! Come about!" Jackson barked. "Reverse course!"

"Coming about!" the helmsman practically yelped.

"Tighter, tighter!" Jackson urged. "As tight as you can manage without a full stop. Put our nose twenty degrees starboard of that lead battleship."

"Trying, sir," the helmsman said.

The ship began to shudder and moan as the engines and attitude thrusters fought to harness her momentum into a short, tight turn. The Ares was considered a nimble ship, able to turn very tightly-at least by astronomical standards. In reality, the turn would cover nearly two hundred thousand kilometers before they were facing back the way they came.

"Turn complete, sir," the helmsman said after forty minutes of fighting the ship's desire to continue straight. "We're twenty degrees to starboard off the lead ship now off our nose."

"All ahead flank!" Jackson barked, still agitated. "Everything she's got!"

"Ahead flank, aye!"

"Tactical, keep an eye for the last two battleships coming in from the outer system," Jackson said. "They'll be in the area between us and the Columbiana jump point."

"Yes, sir."

"Nav, utilize the active array, and make sure we're not going to encounter any hazards. We'll be flying manually for a bit, so call out anything you see." Jackson jabbed the intercom button on his seat. "Chief Engineer, this is the captain. I'm going to need every bit of speed the Ares has. You're clear to run her up past the limits if necessary."

"Aye aye, Captain," Daya's voice came back. "Disabling safety locks now and priming auxiliary boosters for ignition. Engineering out."

The Ares had now fully reversed her course and was roaring full bore right into the teeth of the once-pursuing battleships. The fact that they had begun braking in the face of such an unexpected move told Jackson they were equal parts surprised and confused, not sure what he was doing nor what they should be doing to counter it.

"How aggressive is the decel of the two ships in front of us?" Jackson asked.

"Relatively mild, Captain," Barrett answered. "They're slowing, but only enough to still be able to continue on a direct intercept without overrunning us."

Jackson looked down at his terminal. The Tsuyo remote override system that used to be on the Ares still hadn't been accessed. This surprised him, since it would have been an easy way for Marcum to fully disable the ship without even wasting the propellant to chase him. He either didn't know about the system or didn't have the access codes to the Ares. Or he was enjoying playing cat and mouse when he had six battleships, and Jackson was running scared in a destroyer.