The green IFF signals coming off of Bravo Flight were getting closer, but so far the other squadron of Vorpals hadn’t closed within visual range. He doubled checked the vectors of every fighter in his squad against those among the other, just to ensure that no one was being careless enough to Fox Five themselves into an ally.

Everything was clear, however, and that was no more than expected. Even if anyone on his squad was that stupid, and he liked to think that they weren’t, space was a big-ass place. One would almost have to plan something like that.

Which, honestly, was what frightened him. The competition between Alpha and Bravo was heated at the best of times, and occasionally someone would show off. He was willing to put up with that in training, but if anyone had tried to buzz an ally in this situation, Bill Briggs would have had to think about splashing them himself.

“Hey boss man,” Bill’s wingman called out, “do you have a count on those things? I’m getting fuzzy readings here.”

“They’re in close formation, probably leftover orders from when they were shielding their mother ships,” Bill answered. “The initial count we got was north of sixty enemy fighters.”

A whistle went up across the board. “That’s a lot, boss.”

“They use lasers, which means they have to get inside knife range to score a reliable kill,” Bill reminded them. “We hit them hard from outside knife range, then pull back to let the Big E move into place to cover us before we wrassle them around up close.”

“Sounds good, boss, but let’s remember that these guys are kamikaze fighters.”

“Fair point,” Bill conceded. “Everyone watch for suicides. We don’t want to lose the E, got that?”

They had it.

“Everyone hold your fire until we clear Bravo Flight’s location,” he said seriously. “I know you guys don’t always get along, but you wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved if one of us accidentally splashes our own guys.”

“What if we just wing one?” Alpha Nine asked, laughing.

“With high-velocity missiles? Yeah, that’s likely. Just wait,” he answered, rolling his eyes.

A glance at the numbers told him that they didn’t have long left to wait.

“Interpenetration of the Bravo line in . . . twenty seconds. Stand by to go weapons hot.”

Captain Carrow watched the numbers fall on his screens. There was little else he could do. The fighters were too small and too far out to track visually, and even if they could the signals would be almost three seconds out of date before the Enterprise got them.