After that, Wolfe had an easy time of running down the few stragglers with those ships of his that could jump all around within a star system. With Taskforce Twelve wiped out to the last ship, he'd had no choice but to reallocate resources, and the only group that wasn't involved in the initial assault plan was Kohl's group. Makov had hoped the order change would go unnoticed, but it appeared the admiral had gone and whined to the others.

"Taskforce Twelve was ambushed while escorting the strike force assigned to obtain or destroy Project Bluebird," he finally said, dictating to the computer. "Reports are still coming in, but preliminaries indicate the group is no longer combat capable. I have reassigned Kohl to fill the gap."

"How did this happen? Taskforce Twelve was put in place as an emergency contingency. Exactly how bad is the damage?"

"They've been wiped out," Makov admitted, becoming irritated he was being treated like some errant subordinate when he and Chan were equals. "There was nothing that survived the mission, not even the five cargo ships. This is why I told the group the mission was needlessly reckless and we were putting too much faith in your operative. Your operative who gave away our stealth ships and necessitated the need to send in the taskforce."

"There is no use in assigning blame. We just need accurate information from all sources," Chan said. "Can Kohl's group handle this assignment? Can Kohl himself handle it?"

"Those questions became irrelevant once he was all we had left," Makov said. "He succeeded at Brabus, so now we're only dealing with the Fed's traditional Fleet and Wolfe's damned super ships. But at least we now know the Jericho won't be showing up to massacre our forces again."

"That is some return for the loss of almost thirty ships, at least," Chan said. "Pak will be less than pleased about this, but he will not interfere in your mission planning. We're too close for any more mistakes, Councilman."

"Agreed," Makov sighed and rolled his eyes. There was no point in trying to defend himself, and the text-only format of the com system was too impersonal to convey any real meaning to his words. He'd take the hits for mistakes made by his people and move on. Soon, it wouldn't matter, anyway. "I assume Admiral Kohl contacted you?"

"I contacted him for an update," Chan said. "He only mentioned his new assignment in passing."

"Please, brief Pak on the loss of Taskforce Twelve, and I will finalize our preparations for New America and Britannia," Makov said. "I will not attempt to contact you again until we have completed our mission."

"Good luck, my friend. It is almost over."

Makov turned the box back to standby and spun his chair around to look out the porthole in his office. They'd crossed the point of no return. Forces they'd put in motion would now attempt to carry out their missions with no outside contact, unable to be recalled or redirected. Now that there could be no further adjustments to the plan, Makov felt completely at peace. This would either work, or it wouldn't. If it did, it would be the realization of a dream generations in the making to unite humanity under a single, efficient, utilitarian government that would be agile enough to care for its people and meet the emerging threats. If it did not work…well, he wouldn't survive long enough to worry much about it.