The crippling of one of the battleships and destruction of a quarter of their escorts does nothing to stop the enemy fleet from pushing toward your picket line. You watch as lasers continue to flash around the picket line even as they turn and begin to burn away from the enemy as they begin to reload their torpedo tubes, the destroyers laying a smoke screen of metal chaff behind them to throw off the enemy aim. The strike craft make their run on the enemy battlecruisers sending 4 of the enemy ships to hell with their torpedoes before turning and heading back toward the Essex to reload. As half their number become floating debris fields the battlecruiser force seems to decide to deal with you as well, turning toward you burning hard to come at your flank as the picket line reloads.

>have the picketline push at the main enemy fleet like they are already reloaded to buy time
>keep backing up in hopes the reloads are done time