“Respond with our standard countersign, Lieutenant,” Celesta said. “Tactical, am I correct in assuming that we were the first to arrive?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Adler called from the tactical station. “No other transponders in the system active but ours; even the Prowler is quiet.”

“Very well,” Celesta said. “Ensign Accari, please secure our own transponder and ensure we have no other emissions from the Icarus but the com system.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

“Burst packet from the Prowler, ma’am,” Ellison said. “They’re asking us to keep the com chatter to a minimum and to form up on them. I’m sending the text from the message to your station now.”

Celesta looked over it, slightly irritated that she was being given orders from a non-Fleet officer, but tamped it down once she read the full message.

Senior Captain Wright, please form up on the Prowler and we’ll more easily maintain emission security protocols. We’re deploying an asset deeper near the jump point to greet and route the rest of your task force to the formation. Once all ships are accounted for you will have full operational control over the mission.

Agent Uba

“A full-blown agent,” Celesta mused softly to herself. “CENTCOM must be taking whatever the hell is in Xi’an very seriously.” The fact there was an agent aboard the Prowler made her mind flit briefly to Pike before she was again wholly focused on the business at hand.

“Nav, I’m sending you a set of rendezvous coordinates you will use to get a course plot to the helm.” She raised her voice, “Helm, all ahead one-half when you get it.”

“Ahead one-half, aye.”

The main engines rumbled to life as the Icarus switched from her unguided drift to powered flight, the prow angling down the well as they chased the smaller CIS Prowler. Celesta could shave off quite a bit of time by ordering a more aggressive approach down the well, but the other ships were likely days behind her so it would be a pointless expenditure of propellant. She also tossed around the idea of having her chief engineer, Commander Graham, reintegrate the RDS pod so she would have use of the gravity manipulating drive, but discarded the notion quickly. There was something in the Xi’an System that had CENTCOM scared enough to order the Icarus all the way from the unnamed planet they’d been orbiting despite the fact there were a dozen closer ships, two of them identical Starwolf-class destroyers.