“At current speed and assuming our degree of accuracy increases with proximity … roughly thirty-nine hours, ma’am,” Accari said, earning him an annoyed glare from Adler, who was still trying to get the proper display pulled up.

“Coms, let the other department heads know I want to maintain our alert status but we’re more than a day from knowing any more than we do now,” Celesta said. “Make sure they’re on normal watch schedules and that their people are rested and ready. OPS, dig into the archives and find out if we have any intel on what was physically left of the planet Xi’an after the Phage Charlies were done using it for target practice.”

“At once, Captain,” Accari said crisply before turning from his main console to the auxiliary station to his left, programming it to begin fishing through the Icarus’s servers to find the information his captain wanted. Celesta watched her bridge crew go about their tasks, still feeling the tension hanging in the air, when her comlink buzzed. She flipped it over and looked at the message.

Captain, all parts for the RDS interface have been fabricated, tested, and are ready to implement. –Commander Graham

“Commander Barrett, would you please accompany me to Engineering.” She stood up. “Ensign Accari, you have the bridge … I need Lieutenant Commander Adler focused on tracking and identifying our objective.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Accari said while making no move to leave the OPS station. Celesta liked that he had the good sense to realize that he could manage the bridge from his post, enabling him to continue doing his primary job.

“Is there some problem, Captain?” Barrett asked as he followed her to the lifts.

“Not yet,” she said. “I’ve had Commander Graham working on a solution that will allow us to use the RDS with a greater degree of confidence and he just messaged saying he’s ready for me to give him a go, no-go on implementing it. I’d like your opinion added to the mix when he tries to sell me on the idea and I try to poke holes in it.”

“Then in the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that I’ve never been as enthusiastic about the RDS pod being installed on the Icarus as CENTCOM seemed to be, ma’am,” Barrett said.

“Go on,” Celesta crossed her arms over her chest as the lift began to move with a barely perceptible lurch. Barrett took a deep breath before continuing.

“I feel like Tsuyo took too many shortcuts to adapt the system to a ship that was never designed to carry it,” Barrett said. “I love the idea of Terran ships being able to thumb Sir Isaac Newton in the eye and ride around on waves of gravimetric distortion, but I’d love it a lot more if it was something built into the next generation of starship.”