"No they don't," Jackson drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. "At least not when they've been actively trying to hide, but I don't think that's what we're seeing here. Look at these three larger contacts... The scale is off the charts. I think we're getting our first look at a Phage base of operations. I'll bet those larger contacts are production facilities."

"You're not going to like this, Captain," Barrett said. "I'm now able to roughly determine size and mass for the other, less pronounced contacts... In addition to the three suspected production facilities, the computer estimates twenty-one Alphas and over three hundred Bravos. The smaller contacts are harder to track because they're interacting too closely with the larger ones."

Jackson tried to respond, but his mouth had gone completely dry. There were over three hundred Phage units-twenty-one of them Alphas, and three of unknown specifications other than enormous on a scale that defied logic. This was not good. He had flown his ship right into the lion's den.

"Okay," he managed to say eventually. "We came out here to find what the Phage were up to, and I'd say we've done just that. This might be the beginnings of a full invasion force. They're staging up right outside of Terran space, and we need to accomplish two very important goals: gather as much detail as we can about what's here and then get the hell out of here without being spotted... if we haven't been already."

"How would you like to go about this, sir?" Celesta said, her voice and posture tense.

"That is a very good question, Commander," Jackson said. "Nav, what's our position and relative velocity?"

"Thirty-one point six astronomical units from the primary star, fourteen degrees declination off the ecliptic, ninety-eight thousand, four hundred meters per second forward velocity carried over from transition," Accari said.

"I'm open to suggestions, everyone," Jackson said. "This is a situation without precedence, and we've got a little time before we need to light the mains and then likely be detected."

"Given the acceleration those Bravos have demonstrated in past engagements, I don't think it's realistic to try and stop and accelerate back out to the jump point." Celesta kept her eyes trained on the computer as it began to populate the threat board with the best extrapolations it could manage, given the very limited information it had so far. "These are just the units showing high heat signatures. There could be hundreds, even thousands, more sitting cold in this system."

"That's a disturbing prospect, ma'am," Barrett said. "If they have any deep patrols running cold, we could be crossing their paths very soon if we haven't already."

"OPS, I want this ship as cold as possible," Jackson said. "Tell Engineering I want the lowest power mode they can manage while keeping in mind we may need to bring the engines and weapons up very quickly if we're spotted."

"So turning and running is out," Celesta said. "We're also now quite possibly the farthest beyond the frontier that any human ship has ever been, so there's no vetted and cleared jump point waiting for us somewhere else in the system."

"Engineering is running both reactors down to twenty-one percent, sir," Lieutenant Davis said. "Commander Singh said he'll need three minutes to bring them back up to full power and another five to get the mains started."

"I'm still not used to such short reaction times from the primary flight systems," Celesta said. "This will be a significant advantage."

"Gotta love a new fucking ship, ma'am," Master Chief Green said from where he was leaning against the bridge entry hatchway, his thick arms crossed over his chest. "If you don't need me, Captain, I'm going to take a walk and settle the crew a bit... Don't want em pissing themselves before the fighting even starts."

"Thank you, Chief." Jackson felt slightly guilty at how much he enjoyed Celesta's reactions to Green's casual profanity.

"As I was saying," Celesta said loudly, "running so cold and being able to react so quickly should help tremendously, but then the real question is how long do we keep this up? We can't cold coast out to the other side of the system. We don't have enough food aboard for a trip that long, and there's nothing on the other side but more unexplored space."

"Not only that, but we need to get the information about this Phage fleet back to CENTCOM," Jackson said. "They'll need to deploy a response force to the frontier as fast as they can manage it... probably sooner."

"What are your orders, sir?" Celesta asked after the impromptu strategy meeting fell silent.

"Tactical, continue collecting data with the passive sensors and begin building a computer model of the Phage fleet composition," Jackson said. "OPS, I want you utilizing the same data, but I need to know anything you can tell me about the individual configurations. We've already seen two distinct Alphas so far. I can't imagine that's all they have. Nav, use any and all information on this region of space we have on the servers, and figure out the most logical way out of here given our current position and speed. All of you pull heavily from your backshops and coordinate any additional resources you need through Commander Wright. Any questions? Good... Let's get to work."

The Ares continued to glide silently through the void, her course angling down and away from the ecliptic, but already they were detecting the pull of the primary star's gravity with their instruments. If they continued on, they would begin to shallow out in relation to the orbital plane and begin moving back toward the Phage formations clustered near the inner planets, but not before they passed underneath the three larger constructs orbiting one of the system's two gas giants.

Jackson's crew went about their jobs in a sort of quiet panic, working diligently but always with an eye on the threat board. He had an idea in his mind about how he wanted to egress the system, but it wasn't the time to tell his crew about it yet and give them one more thing to worry about.

It was some hours after entering the system when their fear of wide-ranging Phage patrols was realized. A nine-ship formation of Bravos came within range of the passive sensors and flew within two hundred thousand kilometers of the nearly powerless destroyer. They gave no indication that they noticed them at all as they streaked by without slowing. Jackson had Barrett and Davis write down their impressions of the encounter for the official log that would be attached to the raw data, as it may give some clue as to how they detected Terran ships. The fact there were nine ships in the formation might even hold some insight into the aliens' thought processes.

"We're getting a good picture of the ships in the inner system and the patterns they follow," Barrett said the next day. "What looks like utter chaos at first is actually a carefully choreographed dance. The computer has been able to begin building predictive models based on what the different Phage ship types are doing."

"What about our giant friends in the outer system?" Jackson asked.

"They don't move much," Barrett said, "But everything else has been moving toward them. The Bravos all take turns flying from the inner planets and then back out to one of the three constructs. I can't tell if they're picking up or delivering during these visits."

Jackson took a closer look at his tactical officer's bleary eyes. "Lieutenant Commander, while I'm very intrigued by what you've been observing, is there some reason you haven't left your post since yesterday?"

"I didn't want to try and turn over how I was running the tracking algorithms to the relief watch, sir," Barrett said. "I have everything more or less automated right now. I'll grab some rack time on the next rotation."

"You'll call up a relief before that." Jackson ordered. "I want you out of that seat within the hour."

"Yes, sir."

"Captain, do you have a moment?" Lieutenant Davis called from her station.

Jackson patted Barrett on the shoulder before walking over to the OPS station. "What have you got, Lieutenant?"

"Do you agree that one of our main priorities should be to get a better look at the three constructs orbiting the seventh planet?"

"I do," Jackson said. "Please get to the point quickly, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." Davis looked a little stung at the rebuke. "I think I can get us a closer look, but it's going to cost us another Jacobson drone and require you to tell me exactly how you intend to get us out of this system."

Jackson thought about lying to her and saying he hadn't decided on a method of escape yet, but Davis seemed to always be able to tell when he was shooting straight and when he was just mouthing platitudes for the sake of the crew.

"It's fairly simple, Lieutenant." Jackson looked around before continuing. "When we begin to get pulled back up by the star's gravity, and while we still have a healthy amount of forward velocity, I'm going to order a blind warp transition out of the system without firing up the mains."

Davis swallowed hard at the idea and actually seemed to pale a bit. A blind jump, within an unknown system, and into unknown space was an enormous risk to be taking. Some would dismiss the idea out of hand as being too much like attempted suicide with a fair chance of accidentally succeeding.

"That will still work with what I want to do, but the coordination will have to be perfect," she said. "Let me show you."

Over the next hour, they went through the details of her plan, called over Specialist Accari to make sure her astronavigation was correct, and checked the Ares's manifest to make sure all the required equipment was aboard.

"Go. Now," Jackson said after they'd settled most of the details. "Don't send this down to Flight OPS. I want you to physically go down and supervise the modifications to the drone. Don't withhold details about your plan, but let's keep the part about our pending departure from this system classified for now."

"Yes, sir." She hopped up from her station and practically ran off the bridge.

Jackson watched her go before pulling out his comlink and typing out a quick message for Commander Singh to join her and ensure the techs down in Flight OPS weren't too flummoxed by the unusual modification requirements.

"Flight OPS has cleared us for launch," Lieutenant Davis said. "Our window is open for the next thirty-eight minutes."

"Launch the drone," Jackson said.

Down in the forward launching tube, a specially modified Jacobson drone nudged its way out of the Ares on few small puffs of compressed gas. As per the plan, the drone paced ahead of the destroyer for a bit to ensure it wasn't emitting any unforeseen thermal energy. They'd cooled the drone's fuselage with liquid nitrogen before putting it into the launch tube and were letting it sit to normalize its external temperature with surrounding space.

Even at only a few hundred meters away, Jackson was impressed at how indistinct the drone was on their thermal optics. It barely registered, even when firing its compressed-gas maneuvering jets.

"Drone thermal signature is well within the accepted limits." Davis looked at the tiny automated craft with multiple imagers.

"Mission is a go," Jackson said. "Send it."

Davis reached over and executed a command that would send a single, two millisecond pulse from a low-powered com laser, telling the drone that it was clear to begin its mission. It immediately began a slow, steady climb away from the Ares, sparingly firing its jets as it utilized the velocity it had inherited from the destroyer. Within minutes, it was no longer visible on their passive sensors.

"Impressive," Celesta said. "Depending on how the Phage see,' I imagine the drone will be able to get quite close."

"It's thermally shielded and stealthy against RF emissions, and we've removed its plasma engine," Jackson said. "I would assume if the Ares can sneak by as she is now, then the drone shouldn't have much trouble. I'll be honest though, other than a few random patrols, it doesn't look like security is a big concern in this system."

"Would you be overly concerned if you had twenty-one Alphas backing you up?" she asked.

"We've proven to them that we're willing and able to kill them." Jackson shrugged. "That alone would make me a little more cautious."

With the excitement of the drone launch past, the bridge of the Ares calmed back down to the monotonous routine of observing the passive sensors and keeping track of all the Phage traffic flying about as the destroyer continued gliding well below the ecliptic. The work was so mind-numbing when nothing was happening that Jackson ordered a third watch propped up on the bridge, utilizing junior spacers and dispersing his seasoned operators among them.

Jackson pulled in several of his senior staff and let them in on the plan to exit the system. Predictably, they were less than enthusiastic about something that their training told them was tantamount to certain death, but after the protests had died down he was able to make them see that there while there was nothing that could be done without significant risk, the data gathered about the Phage fleet had to make it back to Haven at all costs.

"Captain, we may need to fire the mains for at least a short burn just before we transition," Singh argued. "While we're carrying enough relative velocity, I'd be more comfortable getting on a course moving well away from the primary before attempting to engage the warp drive."

"What are the no-bullshit odds of the star's gravity interfering with our warp distortion fields?" Jackson asked.

"Off the top of my head, I'd have to say better than ten percent, which is significant," Singh said.

"Even with the proposed flight parameters?"

"Especially so," Singh said. "You're wanting a short burst, in your words, but it doesn't really work that way. By the time the distortion fields stabilize, and the ship has begun her transition, we will have already moved quiet close to the star. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine it could collapse our field and leave us stranded in the corona or upper chromosphere for the short time it would take for us to be incinerated. I'm sorry, Captain, but I just can't sign off on the risk you're asking us to take. Even without our proximity to the star, there's a significant risk."

"Well, then," Jackson said, sighing as he looked at the ceiling. "That's why we're having this meeting. What other options can you give me that don't include lighting off a large thermal bloom in the system by firing the main engines?"

"The short answer is none," Singh said. "Not without exposing the ship to shear forces she was never designed to handle. If you give me some time, we can work to minimize the thermal signature of the mains, but we won't be able to hide it entirely, and it'll require a significantly longer burn than you would like to get us moving along on the new course."

"But with the mains already online, if we're spotted, we can just make a break for it," Celesta said. "We should have plenty of time for a full burn and warp transition before they can get any of those Bravos close enough for a shot."

"I don't doubt that, but I was hoping to get out of this system without them knowing we were here," Jackson said. "They'll know about the drone, of course, but if nothing leaves the system that they're aware of, it might not cause a reaction. The last thing I want is to force them to step up their own schedule and take this fleet to Terran space long before we're ready."

"I hadn't considered that," Commander Juarez said quietly. "I apologize, Captain. This entire time I thought you were simply trying to exit the system without risking an engagement for our own sakes... I didn't full understand the ramifications our actions may have for the frontier worlds."

"A fleet this big and diverse... They're not gunning for a few under-defended colony worlds at the edge of Terran space," Celesta said. "This is a full invasion force. So the question is this: do they have more knowledge of where our planets and colonies are than we're assuming they do?"

"Let's keep the speculation to a minimum for now and keep our focus on the task at hand," Jackson said. "Commander Singh, I want a proposal for a main engine burn sent to me within the hour. If there's nothing else, you're all dismissed."

It only took Singh twenty minutes to give Jackson a very thorough report of his proposal to light the mains and give them the nudge they needed to get on the correct course. He'd done his due diligence, and there were actually three separate proposals, each with varying degrees of risk, with all the necessary data he'd need to make his decision. He looked at the clock on the wall of his office. He had just under ten hours to finalize his decision before it was taken out of his hands completely by virtue of the Jacobson drone completing its mission.

By the time he'd decided, had a short sleep in his office, and made his way back to the bridge by way of the wardroom for a quick bite, the excitement was palpable. Sometime during the current watch, they'd get confirmation that their drone mission was either a success or a failure. They would be forced to leave the system no matter which it was, but the outcome would determine if it was sneaking out unnoticed or being chased by an enormous Phage armada.

"OPS, tell Commander Singh that he's clear to begin prepping the main engines for his low-profile burn proposal," Jackson said. "He is not to begin heating the plasma chambers without my command."

"Yes, sir," Davis said.

"I also felt that method gave us our best chance at accomplishing all of our goals," Celesta said as he sat down.

"I'm not fully convinced, but nor do I have any better ideas, and we're against the clock," Jackson said. "No matter how many tricks you can play with the nozzle restrictors, we still need enough thrust to overcome inertia and get a few hundred thousand tons of starship moving in a different direction."

"Standby!" Davis called out sharply, cutting off whatever Celesta had been about to say. "Data transmission coming in from the drone."

"OPS, compile and archive the data," Jackson said. "Coms! Tell Engineering they're clear to ramp up reactors one and two and start main engines."

"Nav! Make sure the helm has the corrected course for warp transition," Celesta said.

"Yes, ma'am," Specialist Accari said.

At Jackson's request, the young spacer had been moved to split first and second watch for additional mentoring.

"Transmission has stopped," Davis said. "Confirmation of detonation. Jacobson probe is destroyed."

"Helm, engage new course," Jackson said. "Modified acceleration profile delta. Tactical, what's going on with our friends?"

"It looks like the detonation has gotten them stirred up, sir," Barrett said. "We're still being ignored, but all the Alphas are converging on where the probe was, and the three large constructs are accelerating away from the planet at a surprising rate."

"Fuck."

"Sir?" Celesta asked.

"I'd been hoping those three big ones were nothing more than stationary production facilities," Jackson said. "But with that sort of acceleration, it looks like we're seeing a new class of Phage ship."

"I hope they're logistical assets and not strategic," Celesta said.

"As do I," Jackson said. "Nav! How are we doing?"

"We're accelerating away from the system within the predicted envelope, sir," Accari said. "We'll be clear of potential gravimetric interference from the star in less than two hours at current power levels."

"Let me know the instant we are," Jackson said. "Tactical?"

"Phage units are now fanning out away from the planet," Barrett said. "The big boys have broken orbit and are moving toward the inner system at an impressive clip... around two hundred and fifty Gs."

"What does your predictive model say about their behavior?"

"Not a whole lot as this is something completely new, sir," Barrett admitted. "But both the computer and I agree that they seem to have started a systematic search pattern that's progressively moving away from where our drone exploded."

"That was a forty-thousand terajoule warhead we loaded on it," Celesta said. "There won't be anything left for them to analyze."

"The byproducts of the nuclear explosion itself will linger," Jackson said absently as he watched the main display. "If they have a complete profile of Terran weapons used against them so far, they might be able to figure out it was us that took a shot at them. All of our fissionable material comes from the same source in the New European Commonwealth right now."

"We should be long gone by the time an analysis like that can be completed." Celesta's voice was full of uncertainty.

"That's the idea, but we have no way to know that for sure," Jackson said.

Time seemed to slow to a standstill as the destroyer continued to slink away from the enemy hoard. The mood aboard was tense, but Jackson could sense that in spite of this the crew wasn't panicked or otherwise unable to perform.

"Course correction complete," Specialist Accari called out just over two hours later. "We're now moving away from the primary star at a declination of thirty-nine degrees off the orbital plane and at an acceptable forward velocity for warp transition."

"Engines zero thrust," Jackson said. "OPS, tell Engineering to shut down and secure the mains as soon as they throttle back."