“Tactical, target and track all enemy ships ahead of us,” Celesta ordered as Barrett began moving the rest of the crew back to their battle stations now that all maintenance actions were completed. He also reinitiated the pressure hatch lock-down that was supposed to be in effect whenever the ship was at general quarters. He’d relented to make it easier for the work crews while all the enemy ships were accounted for.

“I want all ships being targeted with each primary weapon by the computer,” Celesta continued. “Have it constantly update ranging data.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Adler said, the request a bit unusual. Normally a ship would be targeted by a specific weapon and the tactical computer would build a firing solution based on that so the ship could be repositioned and properly configured for that particular weapon. To have it tracking all targets and updating to fire all of their primary weapon systems she had to tell it to ignore a lot of conflicting inputs that would just cause it to spit out warnings and alerts non-stop.

“Helm, engines to zero thrust,” Celesta said calmly, taking a sip from her coffee, an island in the middle of the hectic bustling as the bridge crew prepped the Icarus for the coming engagement. “Steady as she goes.”

“Engines answering zero thrust, aye,” the helmsman said. “Maintaining course and velocity.”

Celesta saw the ship was travelling at .22c, or twenty-two percent the speed of light. That was far above their safe transition velocity envelope so eventually she would need to scrub that speed off, but she wanted to keep their closure rate high enough that the Darshik ships didn’t have much of a chance to adjust to any moves she made.

“Aft targets have disappeared,” Lieutenant Commander Adler said just as they crossed the imaginary line that meant they were fully committed to the Epsilon jump point. “One target has reappeared in the enemy picket line.”

“Keep an eye out for that other—” Barrett never got a chance to finish his sentence.

“Second target has reappeared off our starboard flank! Range is one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers and closing.”

“Target the closest bogey, two Shrikes,” Celesta said calmly, watching the tactical display and enjoying the fact the target was close enough to get real-time reporting on its position. The ship had angled over and was now accelerating towards them, trying to bring its prow to bear and obviously planning on firing its plasma lance into the Icarus’ flank. It hadn’t fully committed, however, and was crabbing in while maintaining its forward speed and ability to accelerate to match the Terran ship.

“Helm! Full reverse!”