"Makov?" Barrett frowned.

"Not important." Marcum waved a hand at him. "We need to get to Wolfe, Captain, and make sure Exeter Base doesn't fall. Do you have any other ships you can call? Ships commanded by people whose personal loyalty you can leverage?"

"There are a few," Barrett said. "Helm! Lay in a course for Star System B-1171 and make for the nearest transition point…all ahead full."

"Coming about, all engines ahead full, aye! Making course for Star System B-1171. Warp transition in nine hours and a total flight time of one hundred and forty-one hours."

"We're close. Good," Barrett said. "Glad we were already loitering near the outer boundary zone. Helm, you're cleared for all the warp power engineering can give you. Commander Hori, prepare the Nemesis for battle."

"Aye, sir," Hori said. "She'll be ready."

"I have some people to reach out to," Barrett said to Marcum. "I can maybe get us two or three more ships, including us."

"The Jericho is en route to Exeter now," Marcum said. Barrett whistled softly.

"I hadn't heard she'd been put back on the line," he said. "That helps. That monster isn't the quickest thing out here, but she punches a ton. If you're trying to hold a planet against an incoming force, that's the ship you want."

"That your new XO?" Marcum asked, nodding to Hori. "What happened to that horndog you were running with?"

"Commander Accari was promoted and given his own ship, sir," Barrett said as Hori coughed uncomfortably. "He's the first I'll be calling, actually. His loyalty to the Federation and to Admiral Wolfe is absolute."

"Get me an escort down to CIC and a Bluebird terminal," Marcum said, standing up. "I have a few favors to call in myself."

18

"Okay, explain it again."

"Of course, Admiral." Jackson stared at a technical schematic as Lieutenant Commander Gruber, one of the Saber's engineering officers, traced the signal pathways again.

"This is the detonator control module of the Mark 7 anti-ship fission warhead used on the Shrike missile," Gruber said.

"The pertinent parts, Lieutenant," Jackson said wearily.

"Sorry, sir. The important part is here, the inhibitor circuit." Gruber highlighted a series of components on the schematic. "This is a receiver and switch matrix that, when triggered with the correct code, will disable the firing circuits. It was added back when we went through that fissile material shortage and had to recover missiles that missed or didn't detonate. It's a safety feature to make sure the recover ships didn't accidentally set off the proximity trigger."

"Go on," Jackson said.

"This component can't be de-integrated from the warhead," Gruber continued. "It's still there and active. The detonation sequence for the warhead is simple. It's just an eight-bit sequence on the fuse line to trigger the implosion charges. The code isn't highly classified since that safeguard is only there to make sure an errant high or low on the fuse line doesn't set off the warhead within the ship. From the pictures I've seen, it looks like the enemy force has simply tapped their own detonator into that."