"Yes, sir."

Jackson walked over to the middle of the bridge and watched the main display. Captain Risher had already repositioned his two ships and wasted no time running down the fleeing Alliance ships. His rage over the destruction of the Jericho hadn't abated whatsoever, and he felt a grim satisfaction as the Broadsword's missiles showed up on the Link data. The two destroyers had jumped in close and pressed their power advantage, climbing on top of the racing Alliance ships before firing five Shrikes, one for each target.

Captain Risher might have seemed overly cocky using only one missile per target, but destroyers couldn't have been given a better firing solution of close range shots right into the aft end of their targets.

"Prepare for warp-hop," Ellsworth called out. Klaxons rang out with three short blasts to let the crew know they would be transitioning. "Nav?"

"Course is locked in, Captain."

"Helm, execute."

"Executing wrap-hop, aye."

There was the usual disorienting effect of the warp drive rapidly forming a transition field but, otherwise, the flight away from the moon was smooth and quiet. The Nemesis was deep in the outer system and intra-system warp flights were low-power affairs, so it would still take the Saber nearly two hours to cover the distance.

Jackson still marveled over the ability to flit around within a system using a ship's warp drive, but also felt a loss as he realized this would only become more prevalent not less. When he was a destroyer captain in Black Fleet, and his Raptor-class ship was powered by four, fire-breathing plasma thrust engines, he took great pride in the skill and instincts to took to navigate such a beast through a planetary system.

The voyage from habitable worlds to a jump point would take weeks. Now, he was covering that same distance in a couple hours. He was straddling two eras, and he realized that, win or lose, this would be his last cruise. He belonged on the ash heap of history, just like the Blue Jacket and the Ares. Just like Daya Singh.

"End of an era, eh, Admiral?" Ellsworth asked.

"Excuse me?" Jackson asked.

"Warp flights within a star system. When I first came into the fleet, it took seven hours to deploy the warp drive emitters. We'd start days before we hit the jump point. If we just wanted to send a message, we had to fire off a com drone and wait weeks or months for a reply. Now, Bluebird can do it instantaneously. No matter who wins this war, things will never go back as they were for humanity."

"No, Captain, they won't."

22

"Wolfe! What the fuck happened here! Is that what's left of the Jericho down there?!"

PM Joseph Marcum's face was an unhealthy shade of purple as he waved towards the bulkhead display in the Saber's upper observation lounge. Jackson was in the middle of briefing him on what had happened in Star System B-1171 when he arrived at the uncomfortable part of informing the PM they'd lost Starfleet's flagship.