The message was short and confusing. He was told to expect a large file broadcast within an embedded signal on an Alliance ident beacon. There were instructions on which specific frequency and modulation to look on and how to record and compile the broadcast. Along with that information was a decryption key that was a ninety-seven character alphanumeric string he would need to enter. He just shook his head and handed the tile to one of Hawkins's people, letting them take care of the technical details.

"Easy enough," the specialist assured him. "I'll handle it, Admiral. I can set it up so all our ships are looking for the embedded file when it comes to make sure we get a full, clean copy."

"Outstanding," Jackson told her. "Keep me apprised."

He'd been looking over the Xinjian forces and what he had to work with, and the news wasn't great. Their ships were mostly 3^rd Fleet surplus hulls so outdated that, when the ESA was formed, they didn't even bother rolling them into the new command structure. The good news was, although the ships themselves were more or less obsolete, their armament had been upgraded so they could fire modern missiles. He had no idea what sort of targeting radar or sensor packages they had since Captain Chang refused to hand over full specs on his ships. All Jackson had received was a basic inventory of ships and munitions.

"It looks like there are three full squadrons, each with their own commanding officers who report directly to Chang," Jackson said to Commander Hawkins. "This is actually pretty good news. We aren't really equipped to try and feed orders to every single ship in a thirty-five ship gaggle."

"Agreed, sir," Hawkins said. "How should we start? Kohl's ships aren't pressing the issue right now, but they're making sure they pace them further down the system to block Chang's ships from working back towards the planet."

"We need to get them back down into the inner system ASAP," Jackson said. "They're carrying too much relative velocity to maneuver and we need to concentrate their firepower and point defense. Let's get those three squadrons designated Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie on our screens and start from there."

"Aye, sir," Hawkins said, getting his people to work organizing the data.

Jackson sat in a comfortable chair on an elevated dais that had its own displays and could spin three-hundred and sixty five degrees so he could orient himself to any part of CIC he needed. The amount of information available to him in the new combat information center was almost overwhelming now that the superluminal Link data from all other ships was tied into their tactical computers.

This was definitely the place a flag officer should be to manage combat operations, but Jackson realized he could only do so comfortably if he completely trusted the captain of the ship he was on. With Barrett on the bridge, he could sit in CIC and focus wholly on the overall picture.