This seemed to snap everyone out of their stunned silence and got them moving in the right direction again. Celesta understood the emotions they were feeling and even shared them, but her responsibility was to the Federation and to humanity as a whole … she had a chance to deliver a hard blow if her guess was correct, and she couldn’t shy away from that based on nothing more than a slim chance the Leighton crew was still alive. She sat back in her chair, the weight of her decision seeming to press her down into it as she thought about what might happen if she were wrong.

****

“Your aggression is unwarranted. Your attacks were unprovoked. We will not allow you to continue. Like the Phage, you will learn a hard lesson of what happens when you attack humans. This will be your only warning.”

The message was being broadcast at full power across the system from a Jacobson drone streaking at full speed in a heliocentric orbit just past the fourth planet. It had been loaded with multiple transmission modules and was spitting out the message on every frequency in both Standard and what their Ushin translation matrix had given them.

“Second Jacobson has gone active,” Accari reported.

“Helm, all ahead emergency,” Celesta ordered. “Bring the Icarus to transition velocity. OPS, stand by to deploy the warp drive.”

“All engines ahead emergency, aye!”

“Shrikes have fired their second stage boosters, weapons going active,” Adler said as she watched the mission clock. The Icarus was so far out that they had no idea if anything was actually happening save for the message being broadcast by the second drone since it had actually reached them. The rest was just assuming everything was working as it had been designed.

“Icarus is at transition plus ten! Engines to zero thrust and securing from flight mode,” the helmsman called out.

“Warp drive deploying, emitters and transition capacitors fully charged,” Accari said. “Turning over control to Nav.”

“Stand by for warp transition!” the chief at Nav practically bellowed. With a hard shudder the destroyer vanished from the Darshik system without waiting to see what havoc they’d wrought.

****

“Your aggression is unwarranted. Your attacks were unprovoked. We will not allow you to continue. Like the Phage, you will learn a hard lesson of what happens when you attack humans. This will be your only warning.”

The Jacobson drone was still cheerfully broadcasting its message as its active sensors detected a Darshik ship crossing the pre-programmed threshold. It sent a burst transmission of its entire flight log to the waiting com drone and initiated a self-destruct, the powerful explosives it normally carried having been swapped out for a fusion warhead. The blast wasn’t enough to damage the ships closing on its position, but it was more than enough to ensure the Darshik wouldn’t be collecting anything big enough to study.