"Tactical, have any new Alphas or Charlies arrived yet?"

"I don't believe so, sir," Barrett said. "However, the Phage seem to be using gravity manipulation in their reactionless drives, and it is causing some interference with the new sensor grids whenever one of the big ones move."

"Understood," Jackson said. "Just keep as accurate a running tally as you can, and make sure it's available over the Link."

"Brooklands is now accelerating, Captain," Lieutenant Keller said even as the bright flare of the cruiser's engines passed within a few kilometers of the Ares on the way out toward the edge of the system.

"Tactical, track the Brooklands, and inform the Helm when to get underway ourselves," Jackson said.

On the surface, it made no sense to send the Brooklands ahead first and then run both destroyer escorts as hard as they could go to catch her, but this opening engagement was just as much about provocation as it was positive outcome. By flying a single, slower cruiser out to the Phage, he hoped to make them a little anxious to pounce on it, as it would seem to be a soft target with nine Alphas sitting there, but he was more interested in what reaction two of the fastest ships in the Fleet coming at them would garner. Would they hold fast? Would they break their tight formation and swarm into the system in a frenzy?

Nobody could say for certain, but after exhaustively reviewing Dr. Allrest's data on the flight to Nuovo Patria, Jackson felt eighty percent certain as to what the Phage would do. With the numbers they had available, the "hive mind" of the Phage would be reaching levels of intelligence that would allow them to think and react strategically, rather than as individual fighters. With the new detection grid in place, he would also be able to see how long it took them to react after he and Celesta Wright began their approach.

The Brooklands was so slow compared to the smaller, speedy destroyers, that it was nearly nine hours later before she was approaching the point where she would intersect the arc to travel around the edge of the system. The Ares and Icarus would take a more direct line and, with their ability to change course more quickly, would be in perfect trailing position to make sure the cruiser had cover while making her escape. Jackson was running the crew on half watches to make sure every six hours, fresh personnel were rotated in, so the tension of staring down a silent enemy wasn't resting on the shoulders of a few.

"Standby!" Barrett was calling out as Jackson walked onto the bridge, timing his arrival perfectly. "Ten minutes until we get underway."

"Captain." Ensign Hayashi leaped out of the command chair when he spotted Jackson. "Main engines are hot and ready to provide thrust. We're minutes away from-"

"I heard. Thank you, Ensign," Jackson told the nervous young man.

It had been his first watch in the big chair, and he was obviously terrified of screwing something up despite the fact any movement by the Phage would still give them at least ten hours before needing to be ready. "Tactical, put a countdown on the main display. Helm, when you see zero, take us to maximum acceleration. OPS, make sure the Icarus mimics our movement."

"Engines ahead full," the helmsman called out, smoothly pushing the throttle all the way up just as the timer reached zero. Jackson leaned into the surge of acceleration as the Ares's engines pushed her ahead harder than could be compensated by the grav generators.

"The Icarus went to full power less than .02 after us," Hayashi reported, now sitting back at the OPS station. "Time to vector intercept... four hours, eleven minutes. We'll overtake the Brooklands forty minutes after turning onto the new course."

"Tactical, keep an eye out for any movement by the Phage or the Brooklands herself," Jackson said. "Captain Lee has been instructed not to risk his ship if the enemy decides to meet this gambit with overwhelming force. He will be turning back into the system and Battlegroup One from the Seventh will come out to meet the initial rush."

"Aye, sir," Barrett said.

Jackson couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as he watched the green line on the tactical display that represented the Ares's flight path begin to rapidly overtake the Brooklands's. The cruiser was over fifteen years old, underpowered in her prime, and had been given engines with only basic maneuvering in mind. In the limited distance of this attack run, the old girl would never reach her maximum velocity. The two Starwolf-class ships chasing her down, however, would come into the engagement so fast they would be required to brake aggressively if the Phage took the bait and entered the system, otherwise they'd simply overfly the Brooklands and leave her as an easy target for the enemy.

The next four hours were brutally dull. Despite his years in service, albeit very little of it in combat, Jackson was always taken by the fact that battle in space seemed to be hours and hours of waiting and a few brief moments of pure adrenaline, followed by more waiting if you survived.

The biggest problem was that Terran ships simply couldn't accelerate or maneuver in a manner that made the whole endeavor practical, even within the confines of a star system. The Phage could move about in three dimensions as if gravity and inertia didn't exist, but it took a ship the size of the Ares hundreds of thousands of kilometers to change directions or velocity, and even then only in a manner the local conditions would allow.

Even with the available power of the massive main engines, the Ares couldn't simply fly away from a planet when in a holding orbit. She'd have to begin accelerating while staying in orbit, until she could achieve enough velocity to break away. What galled Jackson the most was that the ship had artificial gravity and the miracle of the warp drive, so it would appear that Tsuyo R&D had a pretty good idea of how to create, modify, and nullify gravity. It seemed obvious, at least to him, that by now they should have at least been able to adapt the tech to a working starship engine.

"Helm is answering new heading," the helmsman called out after he'd throttled the engines back to bring the ship onto her new course. "Engines back to full power." They were now pointed slightly inward of their desired trajectory, so the engines could keep them from flying wide of their new course from all the momentum they carried from the inner system.

"We've got some movement from the Phage." Barrett sat up straighter at his station as the data came in. "Bravos are taking up a screening position in front of the Alphas, but they're between us as we stand now, not where we'll be when we make our closest pass."

"They'll rotate the formation to keep us blocked," Jackson said. "Are they focused on us or the Brooklands?"

"They appear to be entirely concerned with us and the Icarus, sir," Barrett said. "The Brooklands is still over three AU ahead of us, and the enemy is not positioning any ships to cover her."

"It's just how you said it would happen, Captain," Hayashi said. "How did you know?"

"It's how I hoped it would happen, Ensign," Jackson corrected. "This was one of a few responses Dr. Allrest's model predicted, given the size of the swarm we're looking at. From here we can narrow it down even further, as long as they don't have a significant number of ships arrive before we get there."

"If this works, we could take out a huge part of their fleet before the battle even starts," Barrett said hopefully.

"Except that we're only seeing a fraction of their available forces." Jackson frowned. "There should have been at least five times this number here already... as well those Charlies."

"Maybe we'll get lucky, sir," Barrett answered.

"You can't actually believe that, Lieutenant Commander," Jackson said in disgust.

"No, sir."

"Incoming transmission from the Ares, sir. We're a go for our primary target package."

"Very well," Captain Lee said. "Tactical! Begin tagging and prioritizing targets based on data coming in through the Link. Assign weapons to each target, and do not begin active scans until I tell you."

"Aye, sir."

This was it. Captain Wolfe had been right about everything so far. The Phage were more concerned about the two faster targets than the comparatively slow single target with the low power output that was flying on a course that wouldn't directly intercept them. Although Wolfe had access to data from some of Tsuyo's top eggheads, it was still uncanny how well the man seemed able to predict the enemy's movements and reactions.

"How many weapons per target, sir?" his tactical officer asked.

Lee looked over in irritation, until he realized the lieutenant hadn't been present at all the planning briefings.

"Three Shrikes per Alpha," Lee told him. "Do not target any of the Bravos."

"That leaves thirty-eight missiles aboard, sir."

"I'm well aware of that, Lieutenant," Lee said. "Now carry out your orders."

"Aye aye, sir."

Lee help up a hand when his XO looked like he was about to walk over and dress down the tactical officer for questioning his orders. Everyone was on edge, and some small lapses in discipline could be overlooked. The crew had only seen one battle, and that had been from well outside the periphery while they watched a whole armada of Third Fleet ships get ripped to shreds.

The bridge crew watched the Link data anxiously as the Ares and Icarus began to slow their mad charges and arm the forward laser projectors. Though laughably out of range, the leakage from the powerful weapons would hopefully keep the Phages' attention for just a little longer.

"Approaching the zenith of our arc, Captain," the OPS officer said.

"Tactical, full active scan," Lee ordered. "Populate the board and unsafe the weapons."

"Aye, sir."

"Bravos are still focused on us, Captain."

"Excellent," Celesta Wright said with a confidence she didn't feel.

The hardened nose cones of the tactical nukes the Brooklands was carrying were a great, simple innovation that had killed their fair share of Alphas, but they were affixed to the same old slow, unmaneuverable missiles that were easily intercepted or dodged.

"Ma'am!" the panicked shout of her OPS officer broke into her thought. "Twenty-seven Alphas have just appeared on the grid!"

"Calm down!" Celesta snapped. "Give me the information calmly and concisely. Where are the new arrivals?"

"Same distance from the primary star as this formation... sixty-two degrees laterally and fifteen degrees inclined." The OPS officer's face turned bright red at the sharp rebuke.

The formation was at another point just outside the system boundary, but nowhere near where they were operating and much too far away to offer any assistance to the Alphas the Brooklands was about to open fire on.

"Coms, get me a command channel to the Ares."

"Tell Commander Wright and Captain Lee to stay on mission," Jackson said to Lieutenant Keller. "Contact the Artemis, and tell Captain Forrest I want her tracking and managing the new arrivals. She has permission to reposition the remaining Ninth Squadron ships as she sees fit."

"Yes, sir." Keller slipped his headset back on.

"The Brooklands is spitting out her missiles," Barrett said. "Ten seconds until their main stages ignite."

"Coms, have the Brooklands clear the area," Jackson said. "Tell Captain Lee he is advised to tighten his escape vector to avoid the new arrivals, even if it means losing velocity."

"Yes, sir." A now harried Lieutenant Keller continued to talk to four different ships at one time about three different subjects.

"Brooklands is accelerating back down into the system," Hayashi reported. "Missiles are now actively homing and flying toward the Phage formation."

"Tactical, give them a light show," Jackson said.

"Aye, sir," Barrett said. "Firing forward laser cannons."

The forward projectors on both the Ares and the Icarus began firing in a strobing sequence that Jackson hoped would at least confuse the Phage long enough for the missiles to find their targets.

"Phage ships are breaking formation," Barrett said. "Bravos moving to intercept the missiles, and the Alphas are moving back and away."

"The new Alphas that arrived have integrated," Jackson said. "They're now too smart to fall for such a transparent deception. Coms, get me the Icarus and-"

"Captain, word coming in from the Artemis." Keller cut him off. "Another massive Phage formation has appeared outside the system. The Link should be updating their positions now."

The monitor showed that the other two formations were arrayed so each Phage group could cover a one hundred and twenty degree sector. The small group sitting outside the system was meant to goad him into a rash move, but they'd already planned to move in the rest of their forces in such a way that they cut off any chance of escape.

He'd only committed three ships out of his total force to the first formation, so he wasn't nearly as out of position as the Phage likely hoped he'd be. In fact, despite now being outnumbered, it looked like his forces were already in good position to block any individual group from getting too far into the system, at least in theory.

Jackson had no illusions that the collection of untested crews and outdated warships weren't going to be hard pressed to hold their own against the Phage when they decided to attack in earnest. From what he could see, they were experimenting and studying them as much as they themselves had been studied.

"Detection grid has another group of large ships transitioning in. This one is inside the outer edge of the system," Barrett said.

"Receiving transponder squawks now, sir," Hayashi said. "They're ours. Six ships... Oh wow."

"Ensign?"

"Captain, they're all Dreadnought-class battleships," Hayashi said.

"Incoming transmission on the Fleet-wide general frequency," Keller said.

"Put it through," Jackson said.

Could they really be about to fly into a contested system, in the middle of a battle, and try to grab him? Or would they simply order the fleet to withdraw?

"This is Admiral Joseph Marcum aboard the battleship TCS Amsterdam." The familiar voice came over the bridge speakers. "I am placing all six ships in this squadron under the command of Senior Captain Jackson Wolfe in defense of the Nuovo Patria Star System. Let's give em hell. Amsterdam out."

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Jackson said.

Chapter 18.

"Three... no, five impacts confirmed," Barrett said calmly. "Good detonations. One Alpha still appears to be under power."

"So we missed four completely," Jackson said. "Still, better than I thought we were going to do."

"Tactical, confirm four destroyed Alphas and one non-combat capable," Lieutenant Davis said.

She'd come up to relieve Ensign Hayashi just before the Ares reached weapons range with the Phage formation as per Jackson's instructions. With her additional authority as XO, he was pleased to see that she took it upon herself to lighten the burden on him and help manage some of the more "mundane" parts of combat, if they could so be called.

"Four confirmed destroyed," Barrett said. "Cannot give any certainty on the fifth, but the four remaining ships are now turning toward us and accelerating into the system."

Jackson watched the tactical display. "I see them."

The gravimetric detection system provided a time stamp on the incoming data, so the tactical computer could tell him how old the displayed data was and where the target likely was in that instant. It wasn't guaranteed accurate, given the advanced propulsion the Phage were using, but it was better than just taking a wild guess like he used to when all he had was long range radar.

Jackson weighed his options as four fresh Alphas, and possibly one more that still had some teeth, turned in toward the Ares and moved past the outer edges of the system. The two destroyers could likely take out the incoming ships, but it wasn't a lock that they would be able to fly away without sustaining significant damage themselves, and that wasn't even taking into account what a few dozen speedy little Bravos could do.

"Nav! Get me a course back down into the system that maintains as much velocity as possible to swing us down by Nuovo Patria," he ordered. "Coms, make sure the Icarus gets our projected course, and inform Commander Wright that we'll be withdrawing from the immediate area-"

"Fifth target is destroyed, Captain," Barrett smiled. "It looked like it was going to try and join the others, but it exploded right when it began to accelerate."

"Outstanding!" Jackson said. "Coms, pass our compliments to the Brooklands, and have Captain Lee rally near Black Fleet Battlegroup Two. Inform him that the rest of his missiles will likely be used to control the overflow around the edges-to keep the main Phage formations away from the planet."

"Aye, sir!"

"New course is plotted and vetted, Captain," Specialist Accari said.

The talented young spacer had been called up from his department by Jackson, specifically to run the nav station during the battle, much to the chagrin of the chief petty officer that normally manned first watch.

"Helm, come onto new course. All ahead full. Take us to .05c and hold velocity," Jackson said, forcing himself to sit down and appear calm, so as not to agitate his crew.