“You’re in luck, Ambassador,” Everett said, looking at the diplomat in disgust. “The Ushin ship is coming down the well towards us, heading for the planets and orbital platforms. My primary job is to keep the Darshik from reaching those Terran assets and it looks like I’ll be able to protect your Ushin friends as a bonus.”

“We’ve picked up a massive explosion on optics, sir,” the OPS officer called out. “Initial analysis is that Bespitd Station was just taken out.”

“Did our transmission have enough time to make it out there?” Everett asked.

“No, sir,” the com officer said somberly.

“So the remaining ships out of the eleven will be on their way down as well, and they can do those intrasystem hops,” Everett shook his head. “Ambassador, I would transmit any information you have that your replacement will need down to New Sierra now.”

“First Haven, now New Sierra,” one of the sensor operators muttered to herself. “Fucking aliens.”

Everett opened his mouth to admonish his spacer, but realized that he completely agreed with her.

****

“Confirmed, ma’am,” Accari reported. “The Bespitd munitions depot has been destroyed. Amsterdam is showing eleven targets through the link, but they’re having trouble tracking them.”

“And the Ushin ships?” Celesta asked.

“One left, looks like it’s trying to get down below the Amsterdam while the Darshik ships are pursuing.”

“How long until we can launch our Shrikes?” Celesta asked.

“Twenty-nine minutes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Adler reported from Tactical. Celesta did the math in her head and could only marvel at the sheer speed the RDS was capable of … when it was working. As soon as the detection grid had let them know that the Darshik had appeared in the new capital system she’d immediately ordered the Icarus onto an intercept course at full acceleration. They’d been on the other side of the system and were flying along a heliocentric course around to the engagement, as opposed to flying down close to the primary star and back up on a more direct route, and they would still beat the rest of the fleet there by over thirty hours.

They were relying on the Amsterdam’s tactical telemetry coming over the Link to steer them in the rough area of the engagement, and Celesta would order her active sensors on at the last minute, not wanting to give away the element of surprise. Since there had only been two engagements up to this point they had no way to determine how the Darshik ships detected other objects in space, but from her own staff’s post-mission analysis it seemed they had similar limitations as Terran ships in that if the target wasn’t decently close or actively transmitting it became exponentially more difficult to spot. With the RDS pushing the Icarus along they had the added benefit of no thermal plume from the plasma thrust main engines lighting up their path.