Celesta didn’t answer as she walked the bridge, looking over all the individual stations and checking over the tactical threat board that was constantly updating on the main display. The data was hours old, but it was obvious that the Darshik intended a fairly basic deployment that would array their ships out along an arc perpendicular to her current course. They had no way to know that she wanted to get to the space directly behind them, so they weren’t committing fully just yet, hanging back and keeping enough distance to react to any moves she made.

The major disadvantage the Darshik had was they seemed to heavily favor that plasma lance. When it hit a Terran ship the results were inevitable as their hulls couldn’t withstand that sort of abuse, but it was also extremely limited in range. More importantly, her laser cannons could begin cutting through their hull much sooner than their plasma could do to hers, but when you factored in six ships ahead of them the equation became much more convoluted.

Without the RDS the Icarus was fairly close in subluminal performance to what they’d seen from the Darshik cruisers with a slight edge in acceleration and speed. The enemy’s intrasystem jumps were unpredictable and a major strategic advantage for them, but she’d began to understand the limitations of the maneuver and was able to somewhat counteract that. The major problem she had was that past the Epsilon jump point her plan was based on nothing. CIS had verified the path to the second supposed Ushin system was clear, but they’d done next to zero reconnaissance of the system itself, CENTCOM not wanting to risk losing the element of surprise and still trusting the Ushin intel.

No matter how she looked at it, they were going to have to run the blockade and push through to the only logical exit point left to them. Trying to circle the system again and hit their original jump point was not an option. The longer she gave the Darshik to plan and organize against her, the less likely it would be for the Icarus to make it out of the system in one piece.

“Tactical, have your backshop run a full test on the armament,” she said, turning away from the main display. “One system at a time, and make sure the munitions shop goes in and does one more operational check on our expendables. Not just the missiles either; I want the auto-mag shells given a visual check.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Adler said as she sat at her station. “Sending instructions now.”

“OPS, inform Engineering I want a comprehensive report on all other ship’s systems,” Celesta continued. “Have Commander Graham’s people interface with the com shops and Flight OPS to make sure their equipment is good to go. We have six hours before potential combat and I want her ready for anything.”