"Aye, sir."

"We've gotten word from the Katana's CIC, sir. The embedded file is coming through over an ident beacon. No ship codes, but it's definitely one of Kohl's," Hawkins said.

"Compile and scrub it," Jackson said. "We'll deal with that later. For now, I want to find Kohl's ship. This can still be ended decisively if we can take him out."

* * *

Russo watched as Kohl became more and more manic. So far, all Wolfe had done was get Chang's ships flying in a line again and started slowly walking them back in, but Kohl was staring at the display like it held the mysteries of the universe. He was trying to decipher some master strategy when it looked like the Fed admiral was keeping it simple for the sake of his new charges.

"Captain, release the rest of our reserve force," he said finally. "The Implacable will remain here on overwatch. I want the rest of my ships moving to take orbital superiority away from Wolfe near the lower system boundary. Stretch them out into a picket line just inside the orbit of the sixth planet. Order them to turn anything back that tries to escape."

"Aye-aye, sir," Russo said, struggling to keep his voice neutral. What the hell was the man talking about? Wolfe's strategy was clearly not to help Chang's ships escape as he was turning them back in on their flightpaths and bringing them down towards Xinjia. His own taskforce was capable of warp flight from within the system, so they could escape at any time they wished. Kohl was effectively taking his force equalizer, which was his reserve ships, and putting them so far out of the action he may as well just order them out of the system.

"He's worried about what happens when Makov shows up and we've taken heavy losses again," his XO leaned in close and whispered to him. Russo just nodded, making sure to keep his face neutral. That made sense. Vadim Kohl pretended to be the master of his domain, but the truth was that the politicians who ran the cabal were the real power, and he knew it. They'd kept him around after his abysmal performance in Odmena. If he lost another taskforce to Wolfe during such a critical mission, they'd not likely allow him to live much longer after that.

"Take care of repositioning our reserve forces, Commander," Russo told him.

"Of course, sir."

"Captain Russo, I must retire to my quarters and confer with my superiors," Kohl said abruptly. "Please, maintain our posture until I return and handle any situations that arise."

"Aye, Admiral," Russo said, not missing the significant looks the bridge crew were giving each other. An admiral leaving the bridge in the middle of combat operations was bad optics in front of your spacers. Kohl's demeanor also did little to inspire confidence. As soon as he was gone, the whispers started down in the pit where the station operators were.