Celesta watched as the tactical computer extrapolated all the sources of data being fed into it and put up where it thought the enemy ships were located as well as their own forces. Even with the display being an artifact, or best guess by the computer, the enemy strategy was clear. They’d appeared just past the orbit of the fifth planet and were going to deny them the use of the jump point. The Fourth Fleet ships were already well past, but she could see the Hyperion and her own ship were charging right into a dragnet. She also could see that the projected positions of the New York and Atlas intersected with the new enemy formations. This time she held out little hope that Captain Caruso would pop back up on the Link again. A Starwolf-class destroyer with battle damage and a single engine was little match for what looked like at least a dozen Darshik warships.

“Coms! Tell the Hyperion to initiate a short jump out of the system,” Celesta ordered. “They’re going to have to risk it. They won’t make it through that spread of enemy ships. Nav, plot me a course that brings us around to hit jump point Epsilon without losing velocity. Helm, keep the hammer down.”

“We’re pushing deeper into Darshik territory?” Barrett asked as Celesta ordered them to come about and head for the second jump point the taskforce had intended to utilize to get to the second Ushin system that was supposedly occupied.

“They’ll think we are, Commander,” Celesta said sharply, not appreciating the challenging tone her XO had used. “We need to pull them back away from those Intrepid-class ships. If we can force them to chase us with their intrasystem jumps, we’ll clear the way and then we’ll extend and escape the same as we did in Xi’an. Look alive, people! This is what we’re paid for.”

The Hyperion was just outside of the minimum safety distance from the primary star that would allow them to execute a “snap jump,” a maneuver CENTCOM still didn’t authorize but had been effectively demonstrated by both Celesta and Jackson Wolfe on multiple occasions. It was hard on the warp drive, but so was enemy weapons fire. Unfortunately, that option wasn’t available to the Icarus or she’d have already ordered them gone. They were too close to the primary star and the gravitational effect was enough that Fleet R&S eggheads had warned them that it could cause a fatal instability between their warp drive’s gravimetric distortion rings and string their individual molecules all across the system.

“Course plotted and locked in, Captain,” the chief at Nav said.

“Very well,” she said, still standing in the middle of the bridge. “Helm, execute course.”

“Coming about, aye. All engines still ahead flank,” the helmswoman said. “It’s going to be a little bumpy until we complete our turn.”