"Hai, Taii-san." With all docking procedures complete, the Miharu somewhat-roughly glided backward for a painfully slow eight seconds, then turned and let the gravimetric engines fire fully to life. Yukari winced as she imagined the marks she left on the docking equipment.
The chatter coming from Akina no Iori was irritating, so she squelched it and took off. They were about 800,000 kilometers away, which meant she had to be a little quicker with the throttle than she preferred. Getting used to the Miharu's wing engines was difficult, but the ship still handled more gracefully than the Sakura did. She swung the ship below a passing group of Sojourner transports.
500,000 kilometers and closing. 17 seconds left. "Deploying interdiction field," she said calmly. The field came to life, though Yukari winced as she watched the battery life of the capacitors dip considerably. "Interdiction field's projected maximum range, 0.981 AU."
Suddenly, communications from all over the fleet rang out. Ships wanted to know the meaning of an interdiction field by a vessel they neither recognized nor could confirm as one of their own. "Miharu, squelch all channels and restore on my command."
200,000 kilometers. 10 seconds left. She narrowly dodged a now-stuck Yui 5 scout as she rounded over the planet's "top" toward Taiie no Iori, which maintained a parallel orbit with She increased speed just a tick.
The ship was pulled into a tight stopping curve, as if they were going to try the "drive-by shooting" attack pattern, before resting in front of Taiie no Iori. They were 50 kilometers directly before the floating graveyard.
"In position, Taii-san." Four seconds left. The interdiction field had nearly come fully online, its range having reached 0.9 AU.
The Yui 5, as well as several other 5th XF ships, were switching to whatever back-up engines they had and were angling themselves into position to fire at the Miharu. The Iori's mass protected them some, but a Arashi, labeled on Yukari's monitors as NE-X5-04 under the Command group, would have a firing solution soon.