“Thank you, Ensign,” Celesta said calmly, but made no call to the helm to throttle the engines back. The Icarus was topped off with propellant and having more velocity than needed when initiating a warp transition was never a bad thing. She watched as her ship raced up to .15c before calling for a throttle back.

“Helm, zero thrust,” she ordered. “Utilize engine power as needed to maintain current velocity.”

“Engines answering zero thrust, aye,” the helmsman said. “Steady as she goes, on course for combat jump point Tango.”

“Mr. Accari?” Celesta asked.

“Jump point is twenty-nine hours away at current velocity,” Accari said, correctly guessing which information his captain wanted.

“Commander Barrett, at jump minus ten hours I want the warp drive deployed and a full system test done,” Celesta said to her XO. “Between now and then I want readiness drills by all departments including Engineering. Maintain normal watch schedules for now, but I want the nervous energy on this ship put to good use.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Barrett said crisply.

“Carry on,” Celesta said, walking off the bridge and pointing to Barrett to let him know he had the watch. Her crew was still the same combat-hardened group they were before they met the Darshik in the Xi’an System, but the incident had stung them as the whole affair could only be called a loss for the Terran team despite the Icarus destroying two enemy ships. She intended to make sure they didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on that during the long warp flight, and there was no point in waiting for the time it would take to traverse the Juwel System to start.

She was looking forward to redeeming herself after Xi’an, but she carried a healthy respect for her enemy into the fray. Their ability to jump around within a system and transport whole starships away wasn’t something to be taken lightly, but she’d be damned if she tiptoed onto their turf and skulked around the edges, afraid to be noticed. It was high time these assholes learned just who in the hell they were messing with.

Chapter 16

“Transition complete, verify position,” Accari called out.

“Position verified!” the nav specialist called out. “We’re less than five hundred kilometers from our target jump point, just inside the heliopause of Tango System.”

“OPS, stow the warp drive and inform Engineering I want the RDS online immediately,” Celesta ordered. “Helm, use our transition velocity and maneuvering thrusters to clear the area. I want the mains ready to take over for the RDS without pause, so have the plasma pressure at full operational level. Tactical!”

“Passive sensors already scanning, ma’am,” Adler said. “Thermal imagers verify enemy presence down in the system. I’ll update as the data resolves.”