Now, with a new captain and a mostly-replaced crew, the battleship was fueled, armed, and back in the fight.

"How long could the Jericho make the trip in?" Perez asked.

"Twelve days if they push her," Pitt said. "I'm sending orders down to Black Fleet's operations center now, telling them to get her underway and transmit official orders once they come through. I'll send the defense force out after as well in case more ships are needed. Hopefully, Wolfe can hold out that long."

"He knows the score," Perez said. "When he talked to Pike, he made it clear that, if he was going to be overrun, he'd make sure to deny the enemy before they got him." Pitt paled visibly at that. Knowing Wolfe the way he did, he knew this wasn't a decision the admiral came to easily.

"There are over fifteen thousand people on that base, Director," Pitt said. "Most of them are civilian contractors. If you're a religious man, now would be a good time to pray."

* * *

"Shuttles are away," OPS reported. "CIC is keeping overwatch for any tracking radars or weapon signatures on the surface."

"Very good," Captain Ellsworth said. "Tell Colonel Beck she now has full operational control of her mission. Happy hunting and good luck."

Jackson half-listened to what was going on with the assault on the orbital docks while he and Lieutenant Trapp sat at a rear bridge station and mapped out the plan to neutralize the stealth ships his aide was certain were hiding along Captain Risher's path. Her evidence was compelling, but something nagged at the back of Jackson's mind about the whole situation.

It was another of those rare occurrences where things lined up so well he was suspicious. What else could the Alliance be hiding in this system already, and why hadn’t they attacked the base in force? Why play all these games with the cargo ships and hidden stealth ships while letting a band of infiltrators fight with the Marines on the surface?

Either he was missing a significant part of their operation, or this mission of theirs was planned by utter morons. When they discovered an asset as critical to the Federation's war effort as Bluebird, they should have come in with overwhelming force and hit it like a hammer.

"How's this, Admiral?" Trapp asked.

"Perfect," Jackson said. "Lock those coordinates in, and I'll forward it to the Broadsword."

"I can do that if you—"

"I need you back down in CIC," Jackson cut her off. "I want you on headset so I can switch over to you to be my eyes and ears down there. The rest of the CIC crew will be busy feeding Captain Ellsworth information on the Marine raid, and I don't want to distract them with a simple observation task for Risher's ships."

"On my way, sir," Trapp said, slipping away from the console and leaving. After she was gone, Jackson looked back over the plots she had programmed in and made adjustments before bundling the data up for transmission to Captain Risher.