"We can't wait here forever," Jackson said. "I wish we had better intel on where Kohl's fleet is right now and if it's definitely coming this way."

"The crew is a little…restless…at the thought of flying all the way out here to defend an Alliance system from Kohl instead of fortifying our own defenses," Barrett told him. "A lot of them think that Alliance forces fighting each other is a problem that solves itself."

"I don't disagree with the sentiment, Michael, but our overall strategy is a little more complicated than that," Jackson said. "If we can stop Kohl from taking out the ESA leadership and political power structure, then an attack on the Federation becomes pointless to them."

Jackson felt comfortable being able to talk to Barrett openly on the bridge as well as having a level of trust with the crewmembers around him. Many of them were holdovers from when the Nemesis had been his ship. The Saber had a fine crew, and he worked well with Ellsworth, but his guard was always up and, sometimes, it helped to be able to use someone like Barrett as a sounding board, knowing that whatever was said wouldn't make its way into an official report back to CENTCOM.

"We need to narrow our focus," Barrett said. "If Kohl is coming with his full strength, that's still a tall order to take a planet that has not only the Homeguard fleet, but orbital weapons. What key pieces could he remove from the board to help him succeed?"

"The com drone platforms would be his first, most obvious target," Jackson said. "You wouldn't be able to cancel out all lines of communication since ships will scatter once this starts, but you would be able to create enough confusion and chaos that the people leaving wouldn't even be sure what the hell they'd seen."

"Power generation on the planet's main continent would be another," Barrett said. "A surprise attack could work to slip a couple missiles down to take out the coastal fusion plants. The backups would take time to get going, and by then, it'd be all over."

"You could do that with a relatively small force," Jackson said. "But you'd still have to neutralize the defense fleet here."

"Kohl likely knows which ships, or which orbital platform, needs to be hit to take out their upper leadership. Alliance military command is a lot stricter than our own. Without orders from the top, those ships will sit and do nothing."

Jackson thought about that for a moment and had to concede Barrett was probably right. The ESA had adopted 3^rd Fleet's rigid command structure when they'd first broken off from the old Confederacy . The 3^rd, the numbered fleet based in the old Asianic Union, had consolidated all of the power and decision making abilities of their military at the very top. Ship captains and even taskforce commanders weren't encouraged or authorized to take actions not specifically sanctioned by their central command. It was clunky, impractical, and created an environment in which field commanders felt they weren't valued or trusted to lead.