I further finessed the audio since posting the clip. The music now feels like it picks up a but more of the slack. Each channel of the first clip before the transition fades out as gracefully as it can, after the last TIE sound and before the next sounds of the omitted sequence. The soundtrack piece comes in at the right time and volume level for each track.
If poppasketti prefers option B, then that’s good enough for me! lol