A couple hundred years ago, when choice Fleet assignments were handed out to connected families as political favors, this may have made some sort of sense. But in an era where humans had fought multiple wars in less than a decade, it was insane to keep those sorts of constraints on them.

In order to justify their own stringent control methods, ESA politicians used Jackson Wolfe—the caricature of him not the actual person—as an example of what happens when low-ranking field officers are given too much leeway. The ESA's official line that Wolfe actually started the Phage War gives credence to a system where individual officers are discouraged from too much free thinking or initiative. The end result was that, if you take out their top leadership, the bulk of their forces wouldn't act on their own.

"Admiral, we have five…seven…no, twelve new contacts that just appeared near the Kruger-Leighton jump point," Hori said. "Contacts confirmed over the Link by the rest of the taskforce."

"Kruger-Leighton is a major industrial center, Commander," Jackson said. "A convoy of ships coming from there would hardly be noteworthy."

"Would it be if their transition flashes indicated they were using Class 1 Tsuyo-Muygen warp drives, sir?" she asked. "CIC is confirming the data, but the computer is classifying them as pre-Federation ships."

"That's the type of drive your old Raptor-class ship had, sir," Barrett said. "She was almost a century old back when we flew on her."

"Interesting," Jackson said. "Let's see how this plays out, but alert the taskforce to be ready for immediate action. These are either an example of just how bad the ESA's economy has gotten since they broke off, or these antiques are part of Kohl's opening move."

He watched the highlighted blips on the main display as they loitered around the jump point. If they were really ships as old as their transition flashes indicated, it would take them the better part of an hour to generate enough plasma in their MPD engines to get moving as well as retract and stow their warp drive emitters. The thermal data coming in over the passives would give them some clue as to whether they were really what they appeared to be.

If they were old Confederacy starships, it made little sense as to why they were out here. Since all five enclaves had been united and had all been flying Tsuyo Corporation designed ships back then, it was entirely possible the ESA had repurposed these relics. The older ships were tough and resilient, most of them lasting well over a century before needing to be retired. Since 3^rd Fleet hadn't seen much action during the Phage War, maybe they just kept flying the old iron.

It was another two hours before they got their first hint as to what the ships were for.

"CIC is resolving ident beacons on all of the newcomers, Admiral," Hori said. "Federation codes. All of them are listed as Triton-class destroyers, lead ship is the Scarab."