"Wolfe always said you were sharp." Marcum nodded in approval. "So, what's your play, Captain?"

"Get the Mickeys moving, provide limited cover with our stand-off weapons, and then make a quick escape along a different vector," Accari said, his cheeks flushing with pride at the offhand compliment from Marcum, a man who was a titan in Fleet circles. "We can monitor and control the ships regardless of distance with the Bluebird link so hopefully, that will give them a moment of hesitation. Follow the ships, or follow us with the module they need. I also don't think they're aware of the subluminal speed this new class of ship is capable of."

"You mind if I sit up here and enjoy the show?"

"Not at all, sir. It's an honor to have you on my bridge."

While the enemy ships continued to disperse and close, the Coyote ran a wide, slow loop around the bunched up Mickey ships. The massive formation was anchored into a heliocentric orbit, speeding around the primary star between the third and fourth planets. It was the part of the system clearest of navigational hazards, well below the single, thin asteroid belt.

It was almost three hours before the control module, something Accari now suspected was engineered hastily as an add-on, would allow the Coyote to connect to the Mickey command ship. All of the menu options that had been grayed out were now active, and there were helpful prompts to get him started. He began by bringing all of the idling powerplants to full output and firing up the main drives.

"Captain, all of the running lights on the Mickey fleet are coming on," the OPS officer reported. "Some ships are shifting a bit in formation."

"Noted, OPS," Accari said. He experimented to try and command in batch navigation commands, but the interface wasn't that evolved. They could actively avoid obstacles like each other, but they couldn't be commanded centrally to fly in formation out of the system.

"PM Marcum, do we have a safe harbor in mind yet?"

"This one should work," Marcum said, standing in front of Accari and showing him the destination on a tile while simultaneously blocking the view of his XO. He knew he should be offended, but with all the OPSEC leaks in CENTCOM, he couldn't manage to work up any indignation at the older man's caution. He read the destination twice before raising an eyebrow.

"And they're expecting us, sir?"

"They said they'll provide us with safe harbor," Marcum said. "At this point, I just can't guarantee that any CENTCOM or CIS black site isn't compromised, and I don’t want to risk leaving them sitting in the middle of nowhere or in deep space."

"It's an interesting move, sir," Accari said, programming in the destination system and the intersystem coordinates for once they arrived. When he entered the course destination into the command ship's input, a new icon appeared that allowed him to copy it to as many ships as he wanted. He selected 'ALL' and watched as the destination propagated down to the rest of the ships. Interestingly, the nav computer from each ship determined the best course, so the ships would actually be dispersing through four different jump points. That should help confuse the hell out of the enemy.