“Aye, ma’am,” Ellison said distractedly. The destroyer only had a single com officer, and although the com section in the CIC did manage a lot of the more mundane traffic it was still a lot for one person when it came to fast-developing operations that needed a lot of coordination.

“Ma’am, we’re within firing range,” Adler said.

“Hold your fire.” Celesta was looking at the threat board. The Darshik ships were still pursuing the Ushin down the system, but their forward velocity made it unlikely that their missiles would reach them in time before they hit the hastily assembled defensive perimeter. But the Icarus was quickly coming upon them and seemed to have a definite edge in real-space speed.

“Ma’am?”

“I said hold your fire!” Celesta said sharply. If she fired her Shrikes at maximum range they would leave the tubes, but their delta-V would be insignificant compared to the still-accelerating destroyer. “We’re going to hand-deliver these,” she said with a smile. “Helm, use your own judgment but I want you to drive this ship right into the middle of that enemy formation, all available power.”

“Aye, ma’am!” the helmsman said and reached for the manual controls. Like all starship pilots her helm operators were highly competent ship drivers, but in the modern Fleet they rarely did much more than enter course corrections into the computer and verify everything was responding as it should.

The Icarus shuddered slightly as the perhaps over-exuberant helmsman ran the RDS up past flank and bumped into the emergency power settings. Celesta let him go. This would either work or it wouldn’t. If the drive shit the bed … again … at the critical moment they would simply scream past the engagement and have to maneuver back around on conventional propulsion. Again.

She watched the range closely, the real-time and estimated positions on the display converging as they closed and lag time in their radar returns lessened. So far it looked like the Darshik were wholly focused on the Ushin ship and were largely ignoring her mad rush even though her ship was broadcasting with active sensors and coms. The enemy was arrayed in a loose phalanx and the Icarus was bearing down on the lead ship. Perfect.

“Tactical, target two Shrikes each on the four flankers,” she said. “Get ready to snap fire and then be ready with the forward laser batteries for the last one.”

“Target tracks are locked and ready, ma’am.”

Celesta just nodded as she watched the Icarus actually pass the outer ships, then the next in line, as she closed up on the tail of the leading enemy ship. Now that they were so close, relatively speaking, she saw her ship was travelling much, much faster than the Darshik.

“Fire!” she barked when she felt she was at optimal range. “Helm! Full stop!”