by Ian Douglas
“We could expect to get the transmission at around 0515, then.”
“Exactly. But it gets better. That transmission from Echeclus will be nondirectional, spreading through the solar system like an expanding bubble. Our fighter reconnaissance will be outbound one hour into their mission, assuming America launches at once, and they’ll encounter that bubble before we do. They’ll have comprehensive if-then orders: if they pick up the signal, it means I’m right and Force Bravo is out there, waiting for the signal from Neptune that they won’t get for another three and a quarter hours or so. If Echeclus reports no signal, they decelerate immediately, then boost back for the Inner System.”
“Damn, that’s complicated,” Caruthers complained.
“The joys of communications limited by c, Admiral. But it will work. It’ll let us deploy out toward Point Libra now, and maybe get the jump on the Turusch before they’re expecting us. If I’m wrong, if there’s no signal, the fighters will turn around and be back in the Inner System three hours later. Think of them as a tactical reserve.”
“And we have other squadrons,” Caruthers said, thoughtful. “Essex and Kennedy are all at full strength. I’m inclined to say yes, Admiral. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“The Senate. Specifically the Senate Military Directorate. I have a certain amount of freedom in how I deploy the fleet for the defense of Earth, but I know damned well they’re not going to authorize sending four fighter squadrons out on what they’ll be convinced is a wild goose chase. The request is going to get bounced back to Earth. That’s a time lag of twelve minutes right now. And twelve minutes more for the reply.”
“So we have twenty-four minutes before they say no. I suggest, sir, that you let me commence launching now.”
“Admiral…you’re still under something of a cloud with this Board of Inquiry. Technically, you shouldn’t even be in command of that battlegroup while you’re waiting for the Board’s decision.”
Koenig decided not to tell Caruthers that he already knew what the Board’s decision was. He suspected, though, that Caruthers already knew the outcome as well.
“I’ll take full responsibility for my decision, Admiral. Hell, tell them I boosted without orders, without consulting you. They can crucify me when I return.”
“You’re intending to take your battlegroup out toward Libra as well.”
“Of course. We won’t get there for sixteen hours, but my fighters will need to be recovered. If we start boosting behind America’s fighters immediately, we’ll still be in a position to turn around and return if we don’t hear from Echeclus in a reasonable time.”
“I’m going to authorize this, Koenig,” Caruthers said after a moment’s thought. “God help your career if you’re wrong.”
“God help us all if I’m right or wrong,” Koenig said.
He didn’t add that twelve capital ships and a few fighter squadrons would not last long against Force Bravo. He didn’t know how many ships the Turusch would be sending in their main force, but it would certainly be more than the thirty-three ships of Force Alpha. A lot more.
It was possible that the deployment of Battlegroup America would prove to be nothing more than a spoiling attack—a means of damaging and perhaps slowing down the enemy fleet before it reached Earth, but at the cost of America and her consorts.
“Either way, Admiral Koenig, good luck.”
The connection was broken, and Koenig was again in CIC, strapped in his recliner. “Commander Craig!”
“Yes, sir!”
“New orders to all ships in the battlegroup. Prepare for acceleration. Course fifteen-plus-fifteen.”
“Aye, aye, sir. New course fifteen hours right ascension, plus fifteen degrees declination.” She blinked, looked puzzled. “Sir?…”
“You have your orders, Commander.”
“Just a moment, Admiral,” Quintanilla said. “Those coordinates…that’s in almost the exact opposite direction from the enemy’s emergence point!”
“Almost,” Koenig replied easily.
“B-but…but you can’t do that!”
“Mister Quintanilla, you would be surprised at what I can do when I put my mind to it. Now strap yourself down and stop floating around my CIC, or I’ll have you ejected. Again. We are going to be doing some maneuvering in the next few moments, and I don’t want you crashing into the instrumentation.”
“All hands, prepare for maneuvering,” the voice of America’s helm officer announced. “Two gravities in fifteen seconds.”
The twelve vessels of the battlegroup would be jostling their way into formation now, using plasma thrusters to maneuver. The gantry of the Phobia dock facility continued dropping away, drifting now until it was off America’s stern quarter.
Quintanilla barely made it to a spare acceleration couch. When the ship was under grav acceleration, of course, CIC was in free fall, and couches were hardly a necessity. A two-G nudge from the main thrusters, though, could break bones if you weren’t prepared. They provided an added safety precaution as well for officers and crew who were working in simlinks, and unaware of their actual surroundings. Having everyone strapped down while they were linked kept them from blindly drifting into one another, or into the ship’s consoles or instrumentation.
The helm officer was speaking again. “And five…and four…and three…and two…plasma torch sequence initiated…fire!”
And Koenig, now, was committed to what might be his last deployment as a naval officer.
He opened another channel. “Commodore Dixon.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Captain Joseph Victor Dixon replied. Dixon was America’s CAG, the officer in command of all squadrons operating off of the carrier. The term was an ancient acronym, one standing for commander air group. The title had eventually been changed to commander air wing, and, still later, to commander space wing, but the original name had remained unchanged throughout four centuries, clearly preferable to suggested official alternatives such as CAW and COSPAW.
His naval rank was captain, but in formal conversation he was given the honorary title of commodore. There could be only one “captain” on board ship.
Dixon flew with America’s lead squadron, VFA-51, the Black Lightnings.
“What’s our squadron status, CAG?”
“Three at full readiness, Admiral. One, the Rattlers, is light at nine spacecraft on the flight line. I took what was left of the Dragonfires and put two of them in with the Black Lightnings, the other two in with the Nighthawks.” He hesitated. “One pilot hasn’t reported back aboard, so the Nighthawks are down one fighter as well.”
“Understood. How fast can you get them off the carrier?”
“The Nighthawks and the Impactors are on ready five, Admiral. Lightnings at ready ten. The rest…half an hour.”
“Do it. Commander Craig will be sending down specific orders. Your people are going on deep recon.”
“All of them?”
“As many as we can kick out there, CAG. And as quickly as we can do it.” He began filling Dixon in on his conversation with Caruthers, and on the threat of a Turusch alpha strike from one side of the sun, with a diversion on the other.
“I see,” Dixon said after Koenig had explained the situation. “If Force Bravo isn’t there, we’re late to the party. If it is, we show up early, with real shit for odds.”
“That’s about the size of it. The battlegroup will be following along behind you.”
“To pick up the pieces?”
“Are you and your people up for this, CAG?”
“Of course we are. It’ll be worth it, if we can spoil their strike. I’ll pass the word.”
“Good. We’ll begin launching as soon as we begin gravitic acceleration. You may scramble your pilots.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
When Koenig emerged from the simlink, Quintanilla was gone. The two-G acceleration had let up a moment before, and he must have left then.
“All hand
s, this is the captain. Stand by for gravitic acceleration, five hundred gravities, in five…four…three…two…one…boost!”
Space-bending energies flowed from America’s zero-point fields, projecting ahead of the ship’s enormous shield cap, folding a tight little knot of spacetime in upon itself. The artificial singularity grew rapidly with the influx of energy. As the star carrier began falling toward it, the singularity vanished, to be reprojected again a few nanoseconds later.
Carefully balanced to avoid catching the ship in a destructive flux of tidal forces, the singularity continued winking on and off, on and off, creating the effect of a steady pull of five hundred gravities out ahead of America’s shield. Mars and the Phobos Synchorbital facility both dwindled away rapidly, vanishing in an instant as they dropped astern at five kilometers per second per second.
And the carrier fell outward into darkness.
Flight Deck
TC/USNA CVS America
Mars Space, Sol System
0315 hours, TFT
Joseph Dixon squeezed down into his Starhawk, letting the seat accept his weight and enfold him in its harness. Above him, his crew chief slapped the top of his helmet. “You’re good t’go, CAG!”
“Keep the coffee hot, Chief. We’ll be back.”
“Roger that!”
The cockpit sealed around him, plunging him momentarily into darkness. The lights came up an instant later.
Around him, on the Alpha flight deck, other Black Lightning pilots were racing across the deck, lowering themselves into cockpits, settling into their seats. The alarm klaxon blared somewhere overhead, echoing through the cavernous chamber.
He turned his full attention to his instruments, both those glowing at him from his console and those now appearing in open windows in his mind as his neural hardware linked in. His fighter was sinking now through the viscous black liquid of the nanoseal covering the hatch beneath him. He felt the sudden shift of attitude as his nose pivoted down; he brought up his visual display, and found himself looking out through the carrier’s open launch deck, at stars wheeling past as the hab modules continued to turn.
“This is Lightning One-zero-one,” he announced over the comm. “I am clear of the hatch. Ship systems are hot. AI on-line. Weapons safed. Ready for drop.”
“One-zero-one, PriFly. You’re clear for drop, CAG.”
“Copy. Release when clear.”
“Hold for other fighters in your stick coming on-line. Ten seconds, CAG.”
Dropping was slow. The launch tubes had the advantage of giving the fighter an extra burst of speed—a free six hundred kilometers per hour of velocity, but fighters could only launch two at a time that way, and it took special preparation to get all twelve spacecraft in a squadron up to the keel for sequential loading into the tubes. This time out, the Nighthawks were going out the bow—the luck of the draw, since they were next on the rotation and the fighters already loaded on the spinal flight deck.
Everyone else would be dropping out of one of the three rotating flight decks, outboard on the hab modules. The hab rotation gave them a free half-G kick outward, a lateral delta-V of five meters per second, easily compensated for later. The advantage was that six fighters could be launched at a time, with just thirty seconds between drops; an entire squadron could be spaceborne in half a minute.
“And three!” the voice of PriFly announced. “And two! And one! And drop!”
The steady pull of half a gravity vanished as he went into free fall, his fighter slipping through the launch deck opening and into space. To either side, the other five fighters of his stick fell in perfect unison. Peters. Aguilera. Hennessey. Michaels. And one of the replacements from the Dragonfires, Collins.
He had an uneasy feeling about that one. She’d come from a squadron that had suffered a paralyzing sixty-six percent casualties, including, he gathered from the psychtech’s report, her lover. She might well be psychologically unstable, even after three weeks.
Still, she’d been cleared by psych, as had the other Dragonfire pilot transferred to the Lightnings. That was Allyn, the Dragonfires’ former skipper, and she would be hurting, too, after losing most of her squadron. It was important to get them back into the thick of things as quickly as possible, let them start fitting in with the new unit before they had too much time to think of dead comrades.
The other two Dragonfire pilots, Tucker and Gray, had been assigned to the Nighthawks…except that Gray didn’t have medical clearance yet. According to the records, Gray was absent in any case, left behind when America had pulled clear of the dock. He might have some explaining to do once this was all over.
The Starhawk’s AI rotated the fighter and applied a gravitational boost of two Gs. The maneuver was perfectly orchestrated with the other five Lightnings in the stick. They continued to fall out from the America at five meters per second, but now they were accelerating alongside the mammoth vessel, clearing the rim of the shield cap, then pulling out ahead of the carrier. Dixon saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. Two of the Nighthawks had just exited America’s spinal launch tubes, hurtling into the distance at 167 meters per second.
Ahead, Dixon could see the familiar kite-shaped constellation of Boötis; alongside was a U-shaped curve of stars, like an upraised arm. That was Corona Borealis, and the provisional navigation point for him and three other pilots—Aguilera, Hennessy, and Collins.
Astern, the second stick of six fighters in the Black Lightnings dropped clear of America. Friedman, Walsh, Cutler, Huerta, Hernandez. And the former CO of VFA-44, Allyn.
Once clear of the America’s shield cap, they used maneuvering thrusters to adjust their Starhawks’ attitudes and kill the sideways drift imparted by their drop, and configured their craft into high-G needles.
“America CIC, this is Deep Recon Red,” Dixon said. “Handing off from PriFly. We are clear of the ship and formed up. Ready to initiate PL boost.”
“Copy, Deep Recon Red. Primary Flight Control confirms handoff to America CIC. You are clear for high-grav boost.”
“Acknowledge. Cleared for boost.” Dixon switched to the formation frequency. “Okay, people. You heard the lady. Engage squadron taclink. Fifty-kay acceleration in three…two…one…engage!”
And the fighters vanished toward the unwinking stars at half a million meters per second.
Oceana Naval Station
North American Periphery
2245 hours, local time
It had taken almost an hour to get here.
Trevor Gray had dropped off the rented broom at the Columbia Arcology, then caught a suborbital hopper for the twenty-minute flight to Oceana.
Four centuries before, Naval Air Station Oceana had been the largest U.S. naval base on the East Coast, and the command center for all Atlantic strike fighter activities when they were not actually on deployment. The relentless rise of the warming oceans eventually had forced the evacuation of nearby Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, and vast swaths of tidewater Virginia.
The naval base had remained, however, first under a sealed dome, then building up as the water levels rose, creating the iconic flat-topped base on pylons, often derided as the world’s largest and least maneuverable seagoing aircraft carrier.
The hopper had touched down on the upper landing deck in darkness at just past 2230 hours, local time, and Gray, with the handful of the military passengers from Morningside Heights, had checked in at the base quarterdeck.
The place was crowded. The recall order had caught a lot of naval and Marine personnel on Earth, and all of them were trying to get back to their ships.
Gray slapped his hand on the reader pad as a bored rating asked for his name and id. When Gray’s data flashed up on the man’s screen, however, he appeared to become more interested. “Lieutenant Gray? Fighter pilot, VFA-44?”
“That’s me.” A bold enough statement, considering he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to be.
“Okay…according to this thing, sir,”
he jabbed a finger at his console monitor, “your ship, the America, is boosting out-system. She left Mars half an hour ago.”
“Shit.” All he could think was that Collins was going to have a field day with this. “Where are they headed?”
“Classified…but I’d be willing to bet it has something to do with all the commotion about the Tushies out at Neptune, wouldn’t you say?”
“Reasonable guess.”
“I thought so. Anyway, a few hours ago, a request came through from the America for replacements. Two brand-new squadrons of Starhawks. With nugget pilots. We were putting together a flight plan to get those squadrons out to Mars.”
“So you’re sending them out there now?”
“The request was from your admiral, and it was flagged ‘urgent,’” the rating said. “How would you like to skipper them out to the ship?”
Gray thought about this. Technically, he was still off the flight line, pending a final clearance from psych. Either the enlisted rating hadn’t noted that data line on his electronic id…or he didn’t care.
Skippering a bunch of kid-nuggets to America? Sure, he could do that. Oceana was where Gray had begun his flight training four years ago. There were several dozen squadrons home-ported there, and some hundreds of fighters. Carriers throughout the fleet used them as reserves, replacing individual spacecraft—or entire squadrons—when they wore out, or when they were used up.
Hell, it wasn’t like he had anything back in the Manhattan Ruins to go home to.
“Sounds like a plan,” he told the rating. “Where do I sign on?”
“Billingsly!” the rating shouted, turning to look over his shoulder. “Get this man down to Flight Ops!”
It might be against his better judgment, but he was going back to the America.
Chapter Twenty-One
18 October 2404
