Welp, we were able to force
Starship One to jump out with 2 CMDRs. Hat-tip to CMDR Eweqer. Nothing apparently happened except a mysterious "Mission Objective located" that we couldn't trace down. The ship was there when we re-entered the instance. Still planning to try it again with more people tomorrow night. Splitting the defender ships away from the Farragut worked like a charm, but the 11 defenders+fighters are a bit much for 1 CMDR to handle.
Getting 2 CMDRs into 1 instance took about as long as the fight. The Farragut didn't leave a wake.