"They'll be fine if they can maintain that rate of turn," Jackson said.

The Bravo ships were using the fourth planet as an anchor point to swing around and come back the opposite way, but it still required a prodigious amount of engine power to do it with the speeds they were carrying. Without the RDS at full power, they'd actually accelerate around the planet's gravity well and get spit back out the way they were going with even more velocity. The problem was that Kohl's more powerful ships weren't very far behind, staying just out of weapons range, and would be able to close quickly during the turn.

For the next eleven hours, they could do nothing but wait as their forces all shifted again, and Captain Chang's ships moved through their last course adjustment before all hell would break loose. Once that first volley came in from an approaching formation, the game would be up, and Kohl's ships would have to respond quickly before the next pass.

Jackson had taken the opportunity to let his crew get rest, splitting the shifts with overlap between himself and Commander Hawkins. He figured the officer would balk at being left in charge of Chang's entire force since Barrett couldn't leave the bridge, but he took it with his usual quiet stoicism and got the job done.

The one major advantage Jackson had right now over Kohl was his RDS detection grid giving near-real-time position updates of all ships and the Wolfpack's sensors being put on the Link and transmitted back via Bluebird. While he was getting high-resolution data of the battlespace, Kohl watched from afar, relying on information that could be up to fifty minutes old by the time he got it.

As long as he was able to get at least one good pass from his strategy, he should make a serious dent in Kohl's total force. The real question was how much was the other admiral willing to lose before calling for a withdraw.

* * *

"We're taking some hits, but they still seem more interested in running than fighting, Admiral."

"So it would seem, Captain," Kohl said.

He'd been watching Wolfe keep constricting his formations, never slowing down for a standup fight, and couldn't figure out if there was some master strategy at play here or not. From what Kohl could see, Wolfe was simply trying to keep his forces spread out and to minimize engagements. It was a workable short-term strategy to buy time, but this had been going on for the better part of four days now, and the radio calls from his crews were becoming more frustrated. They wanted to charge forward and press the issue, but Kohl saw no advantage in flying directly into the enemy's weapons range.

"We've received word, and Makov's forces are another four or five days out," Russo said. "Shall we stretch this out and wait for the ability to just overwhelm Captain Chang's fleet?"

"I'd prefer to have this matter settled before that, but not at the expense of half my fleet," Kohl said. "I know this cabal is supposed to be unified in purpose, but I'd prefer to have armed ships on parity with that of Makov and Chan when they get here, if you catch my meaning."