Wellington stirred in the copilot seat as if prodded. He’d actually managed to fall asleep in the middle of a battle, albeit as an observer. Augustus Wellington was not a young man nor a particularly healthy man, a lifetime of excess catching up with him as his skin sagged and his midsection swelled. Pike wasn’t the man’s caretaker, and he did understand the wisdom of making the powerful lifelong politician the new President to keep the other enclaves in line until the Federation—sorry, the United Federation—had its feet under it, but he wondered if the man was up to the job. Being President was basically signing up to have your life shortened by fifteen years from stress, and he wasn’t sure Wellington had fifteen left to give.

“I’m assuming we have no way to track the enemy ship that escaped,” Wellington stated, not actually asking a question. “We need to act fast on this. Did the bulk of Parliament make it out of the system?”

“No, sir,” Pike said. “The four cruisers made it away from New Sierra but they’re days away from their jump point.”

“Recall them.” Wellington hefted himself out of the seat. “Then get us back to the planet and have Admiral Marcum in my office the moment he can physically make that happen. Would it be faster to just pick him up on the way?”

“That … wouldn’t be advisable, sir,” Pike said carefully, thinking about the ramifications of blowing his cover.

“Whatever,” Wellington waved him off. “Just make all that happen. I’m going to try and get some sleep before we land … something that will certainly be in short supply once we start this off.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask, Mr. President,” Pike said, “but start what off, exactly?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Mr. Lynch?” Wellington smiled humorously. “We’re going back to war, and far before we’re ready.”

Pike began entering the necessary commands to the fleet under his credentials that identified him as speaking for the President himself, a hard, cold lump forming in his stomach as he did. As an intelligence operative, and one that covered far more territory than most, he knew that Wellington’s quip was a vast understatement. The Federation had lost forty-eight percent of its territory to the splintered Eastern Star Alliance. That was half its planets, people, ships, and manufacturing capabilities. The Darshik were a defeatable, if inscrutable enemy that a full strength Starfleet might stand a chance of turning away, at least based on the strength they’d shown so far in the opening skirmishes. But Starfleet now consisted of the First, Fourth, and a severely battered and weary Black Fleet, officially designated the Seventh.