“Good hit, Bravo,” Captain Carrow said from the command station of the Enterprise. “RTB while Alpha mops up the dregs.”

“Aye sir, Bravo Flight is RTB,” Thane said, flipping his Vorpal end over end, putting his burners away from the destruction his flight had wrought.

The squadron followed suit, burning hard to build Delta-V back to the Enterprise. The carrier was barely visible in the distance, and only by their augmented scanners, but it was heading toward them even as a dozen IFF tags lit up on their screens.

Alpha Flight was in space and accelerating hard in their direction.

Thane glanced at the rear scanners, noting that it was probably none too soon, because every single remaining Drasin fighter was blue, shifting hard.

“I think we pissed them off, boys.”

“Whoa.”

Admiral Gracen had to admit, the sentiment fit.

“Alright.” She shook off the surprise of the Drasin ships just vanishing into clouds of plasma. “The Enterprise has cleared the road. Time to do our jobs. Come about and clear the guns!”

“Aye ma’am,” Steph said softly, thinking about the sheer rain of destruction the Vorpals had just brought down on the enemy.

He truly hated to admit it, but it was a fair sight more than the Double A squadron would have been able to pull off even at their height.

Those new birds are some scary pieces of kit, I’ll give them props for that.

Of course, for the moment at least, he wasn’t Double A anymore. He was Heroic, and that meant that he could top that little show and leave plenty to spare for an encore.

“Ithan Chans”—Gracen looked over to where Milla was working—“prepare targeting solutions for the ships within our range.”

“Yes Admiral. Solutions being prepared.”

“We’re out of the fire, but this fight is a long way from over. Michelle, watch our flanks. They ambushed us once. We may not get so lucky a second time,” Gracen ordered.

“Aye ma’am. Should I go full active?”

Gracen considered it, then nodded. “Yes. They know we’re here anyway. Do it.”

“Going full active, all screens, all bands,” Michelle said. “The other Heroics are following suit.”

The Heroic Class ships were capable of operating with full FTL scans of a system, effectively for an unlimited duration. It poured high-energy, low-life tachyons out into the system and used the nearly invisible bounce-back signals to track everything moving within a range of several AU.

The words “energy intensive” didn’t begin to cover the costs of such high-level scanning, but one thing that the Heroics had aplenty was energy.

“Four hundred thirty-three enemy ships approaching on track from Earth orbit,” Michelle announced a moment later.

Gracen nodded. That was just within their engagement limit if her count was correct.

“Firing formation Delta,” she ordered. “Spread us out, clear the guns, and fire as they bear.”

“Aye ma’am,” Steph said. “Formation Delta.”