"CIC still can't pinpoint which ship is controlling the formation, sir," Hori said.

"Tell Commander Hawkins he had better step up his efforts," Barrett said. "We need that information. Now."

"Aye, sir," Hori said doubtfully.

Tracing a specific emitter to a location wasn't especially difficult, but picking one out of a storm of other broadcasting emitters was a nightmare. For all Jackson knew, some ship was piggybacking the control signal on their ident beacon, and they didn't have the time for the sort of in-depth analysis of every source to dig it out. Either way, he'd have to leave it to Commander Hawkins to sort out.

"I'm leaning back towards these being cannon fodder to pull the Xinjians out of position, but not enough of them have reacted. Two-thirds of their force is hanging back by the planet," Barrett said.

"This is the most convoluted, nonsensical strategy I think I've ever seen," Jackson said. "This mission was meant for a different taskforce, but I'm still surprised that Kohl didn't kill this diversion once he arrived. He's never shown this sort of propensity for convoluted strategies or even much imagination at all when it comes to tactics. If he feels he has the superior force, he'll come straight at you in a bull rush."

"Having studied the Odmena disaster, I see what you mean about his tactics, sir," Barrett said. "But he did show that, if he has an advantage he thinks will take us by surprise—like his small stealth ships that time—he'll deploy them while keeping his distance. It's almost like he's not completely confident when he uses something that relies on stealth or misdirection."

"Interesting point," Jackson conceded. "For now, there's nothing we can do. We have no idea where his forces are hidden, we don't know what the Tritons are for, so we'll continue to wait and observe. We need him to poke his head up so we can chop it off, otherwise we'll only get our six-ship taskforce tangled up in a three-way brawl where we'll be vastly outnumbered by both sides."

"Yes, sir."

Jackson looked over at his captain at hearing the tone of his voice. He understood Barrett's frustration. There was a clear and present danger against the United Terran Federation, and they were sitting idle and waiting to help protect the capital world of the very people attacking them. He was certain his crews would much rather be patrolling the DeLonges System or some other critical resource rather than being here, but the situation was much more complicated than that. If they could stop the attack here, it was possible they could avert the entire war.

* * *

"I've convinced as many as I could. We'll meet up with Stark's personal ship in orbit over DeLonges. He's departing New Sierra shortly with an official flight plan that takes him to the federal retreat on that planet. We'll intercept and pick him up there."

"So, they're not even going to change the defensive posture of the system?" Accari asked.