"Helm! Move us away from the formation," Accari said. "We need to get clear before I activate this cattle stampede. Accelerate us away on the same orbit…all ahead full."

"Engines ahead full, aye! Following orbital arc away from Mickey formation, sir."

The Coyote surged onto her new course, quickly leaving the formation behind. Once his ship was half a million kilometers away, he executed his command script and watched as four-hundred and ninety-seven acknowledgements came through. There were also a handful of error messages that made him frown.

"PM Marcum, we have some stragglers," he said. "Three ships that aren't actually complete hulls, all of them missing their drive sections, and two that have failed to initialize. Their powerplants are still showing they're in standby power, and they aren’t responding to ramp-up commands. Given the…unusual nature of this mission, I'm asking for your advice as the Chairman of the Fleet Oversight Committee and—"

"You're not going to get court martialed, Captain…just ask."

"I want to swing around and put a missile into each of the stragglers to deny the enemy, sir."

"Prudent action," Marcum said. "Take out the duds, and I'll swear to everyone it was my idea if it ever even comes up."

"Helm, keep the hammer down and tighten our radius. Tactical, I want to put a Shrike into each target hull on a single pass. You'll be at intermediate range, and you'll only get one pass," Accari said. He'd done the math and knew that, by the time they came around the star, even at full power, the enemy fleet would almost be on top of them. It would still be dicey getting out without risking a missile shot from them.

As it turned out, the confusion created in the enemy fleet by all of the Mickey's lighting the fires and flying towards their respective jump points at full burn gave the Coyote the margin she needed to slip in under the remaining ships and lob missiles at all of the derelicts. Accari hated the idea of destroying fresh new hulls, but he knew the Mickeys were loaded with tech that needed to be kept out of Alliance hands for as long as possible. He just hoped Admiral Wolfe wouldn't have his ass for shooting down so many of his ships just to make sure the Coyote could skirt out of the system unharmed.

"Bold moves, son," Marcum said quietly from the observer's seat next to Accari. "You were definitely the right man for this job."

"Thank you, sir." Accari said, smiling tightly as his fast-attack cruiser screamed out of the system at a relative velocity the enemy ships couldn't hope to match. The enemy ships had launched a flurry of missiles after the Mickeys once they realized what was happening, but it looked like all of their ships would hit their jump points and transition out of the system before the missiles could reach them.

"We're on course for the Columbiana jump point, Captain," the nav specialist said. "Do we have a final destination yet?"