"Wolfe to taskforce," he said, waiting a second as the coms officer put him on the open channel and nodded to him. "It looks like those old 1^st Fleet ships are loaded up with massive antimatter charges. Stay away from them. I repeat, do not engage the Tritons."

"CIC confirms, sir. Antimatter was used on that ship," Hori said. "Commander Hawkins said, and I'm quoting, 'Tell the Admiral they used a shit ton of anti-hydrogen in that charge.'" Jackson just shook his head, trying not to roll his eyes.

"Please, have him look into that hidden formation you mentioned earlier. If it's there, it's a good place to start looking for Kohl."

"The rest of the Tritons are heading to their targets," Barrett said. "The second com drone platform is toast. Looks like they're not going to hit the planet, so that's something at least."

"They need to control the ESA," Jackson said. "Wiping out Xinjia would effectively shatter it. The enclaves would split apart, and they'd start losing worlds and resources at a rate they can't afford."

Over the next twenty-eight hours the Triton-class destroyers, still under heavy acceleration from their hopped-up RDS engines, took out the second com drone platform, three large formations of Xinjian ships, and the two largest orbital platforms over Xinjia itself. The destruction of the platforms was so complete there wasn't even much risk from the falling debris to the planet below. CIC had labeled them both as heavy construction platforms.

The last Triton had, inexplicably, hit a moon orbiting the second planet. It was the last target hit, and the resulting explosion on the surface indicated they'd hit something. What it was exactly, his intel people couldn't say. Jackson's curiosity was piqued, so he'd ordered the Cutlass to the planet to do a close pass and put eyes on what was left.

In all the destruction and confusion, the Federation ships were completely ignored. The twenty ships Kohl had moved in to clear the way for the Tritons had turned to engage what was left of the Xinjian forces. The ferocity of their attack told Jackson they were worried a ship would escape the system and spread word they'd been attacked.

The appearance of the Wolfpack screwed up Kohl's attempt to pin it on the Federation by using the retired 1^st Fleet ships. So now, they had to adopt a scorched earth policy and leave nothing in the system capable of warp flight before they moved to secure the planet.

While the system was spun into chaos, most of the Fed ships held their tight defensive formation while the Nemesis lurked along the boundary and the Cutlass flew her recon mission. Jackson kept waiting for the Xinjian forces to organize and rally a counter-offensive, but they never did.

He questioned what his mission in this system even was. He wouldn't have been able to get his ships in close enough to even half the Tritons to take them out before they hit their targets and would have put his own ships at unacceptable risk. He also didn't have the numbers required to neutralize Kohl's forces.