Over the next six hours the Darshik formation continued to redeploy until they had a single ship anchoring the net and the other five branching out almost equidistant from each other and coming in on them at a shallow angle. It didn’t take a tactical genius to see that they were going to try and slowly collapse their formation until the Icarus had nowhere to go and could be pounded by the five ships nearly simultaneously.

“Tactical, target the furthest, centermost ship with four Hornets,” Celesta ordered. “Then get me an updating fire solution for the auto-mag and stand by. OPS! Let me know when the leading edge of the enemy formation collapses down to the one-hundred-thousand-kilometer range.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Adler said.

“Numbers coming up on the main display, Captain,” Accari said.

Despite the way space combat had evolved in such a short period, it was the timing that Celesta never got used to. Days of nothing, just flying to or fleeing from an engagement and then, as ships came together, it was fast and furious for a few harrowing moments and then back to waiting. It flew in the face of centuries of accepted doctrine in the Terran fleet that all fighting would be done from a safe distance with guided or ballistic weaponry. From the way the Darshik ships seemed to have evolved, and the weaponry they employed, it appeared they’d never considered standoff warfare as a viable option. Nearly all their weapons required their ships to get in very close and try to knock out an enemy at ranges that Terran captains wouldn’t consider other than during docking maneuvers.

“Helm, all ahead emergency,” Celesta said, watching the ranging data closely.

“All engines ahead emergency, aye.” The helmsman deftly disengaged the safety locks and soon the deck was rumbling harshly as Celesta watched her main engines climb to one hundred and thirty-one percent of their designed maximum output. The computers that controlled the engines wouldn’t let her destroy them without a secondary safety lockout being overridden from the command console at her seat. They would pull the power back or allow it to climb as it monitored the electromagnetic constrictors, the nozzles, and the plasma pressure in each MPD. All the participants in the battle were close enough that her maneuver had an immediate effect as the Icarus accelerated to the point that the flanking enemy ships had to increase their intercept angles and would likely still overrun the destroyer.

“OPS, keep an eye out for any fire from those flankers,” Celesta ordered. “Tactical, fire the Hornets and stand by for the auto-mag.”

“Firing!” Adler called and four missiles, much smaller than Shrikes, streaked away from the ship from the forward launch tubes. The missiles were all tracking true, but Celesta had no doubt the small interceptors would be destroyed by the Darshik cruiser before they could do any damage.