Centre of Gravity. Ian Douglas

minutes, sir.”

      Buchanan nodded. Twenty minutes was damned fast. The ready crews would be busting ass to turn those fighters around.

      “Do you have anything to add, Admiral?” he asked.

      “I suggest that we get all squadrons spaceborne ASAP, and keep them out there,” Koenig said from his barge. “Priority to the fighters, of course, but get the EW and SAR squadrons off the carrier as quickly as you can. America will be a target, especially while she’s in dock.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.” That made sense. If America was crippled or destroyed while still in dock, at least her fighters would be spaceborne and on an attack vector.

      “Number One,” Buchanan continued, “get my ship out of dock if you have to cut the lines with a pocket knife and haul her out on your shoulder.” He glanced at the Rutan’s bulkhead display. The shuttle was approaching the carrier now, approaching over the curve of her shield cap. He could see a fighter coming in from astern, heading for a trap on the hangar deck. The Rutan wouldn’t be going in that way. They would dock in zero-G, the quarterdeck docking bay, just forward of the rotating hab modules. “We’re about five minutes from docking, so stop gabbing with me and get on it!”

      “Aye, aye, Captain.”

      When it came to wielding a star carrier, three men, in a sense, shared the command responsibilities. Buchanan himself commanded the America. Captain Wizewski, as CAG, was responsible for the 102 spacecraft of CVW–14, the Carrier Air Wing, currently deployed aboard. And Admiral Koenig was in overall command of America’s Carrier Battlegroup, CBG–18, which included not only the carrier herself, but the nine other ships currently attached to the CBG. His orders, and his strategic and tactical thinking, had to take in all ten vessels and the deployment of America’s fighters.

      He was grateful that Koenig hadn’t interfered as he’d given orders to Jones. Too many group COs did that … and it undercut a captain’s authority on his own bridge. Koenig, he knew, was probably champing at the bit to get the America under way more than was Buchanan, but he’d spoken only when directly asked if he had any recommendations.

      The admiral was one of the good ones, the sort of CO for whom the entire CBG would go to hell and back. He checked the update on the intruder. It was accelerating now … possibly maneuvering to head out-system, though it was too soon to tell. Taking on that puppy would be akin to a stroll in hell, yeah.

      Impatiently, Buchanan remained still and silent as the Rutan maneuvered toward the quarterdeck docking bay. The bulkheads of the Rutan’s passenger hab were projecting an all-around view of the exterior now, creating the illusion that they had gone translucent. Directly to port, the underside of the carrier’s shield cap rose like an immense, gray-black cliff; to starboard, the vessel’s hab modules continued their steady and stately rotation, making one complete swing around America’s central spine 2.11 times each minute, or once in twenty-eight seconds.

      Ahead, a rectangular hatchway had opened in the side of the carrier’s spine, illuminated by bright white lights set into the deck. From this angle, the quarterdeck accessway connecting the ship with the base docking facility seemed to drop in from directly overhead and slightly aft of the open bay.

      And then the Rutan, on AI pilot, glided silently through the opening and into the Star Carrier America.

       H’rulka Warship 434

       Cis-Lunar Space, Sol System

       1534 hours, TFT

      “We are not going to strike the vermin?” Swift Pouncer asked over the ship’s internal communications network. Speaking only in radio, without the added color and modifying overtones of its sonic speech, the words were empty of all emotion.

      But Ordered Ascent knew what the others must be feeling.

      “We have the technological advantage,” Ordered Ascent replied, knowing that all of the other All of Us were listening closely. “But that advantage is not great enough to allow us to fight an entire star system. Too many of us would fall into the Abyss. It is far more important that the Masters know of these aliens, and that they have been sending probes through System 783,451, than it is for us to destroy their ships. The destruction will happen later, be sure of that.”

      “A number of vermin ships are closing with us,” High Drifting reported. “We estimate that they will launch weapons within fifteen vu.”

      “The vermin defend their nest,” Swift Pouncer added.

      Ordered Ascent watched the unfolding tactical situation through its electronic feed from Warship 434’s tactical mind. No fewer than fourteen enemy ships were currently with range of 434’s weapons. It was tempting to destroy those fourteen before dropping into the emptiness between the stars.

      The All of Us had served the Masters for some twelves of thousands of gnyii now, ever since the Starborn had first shown the H’rulka how to extract metals from the winds of their world, how to bend gravity to their will, and how, at last, to build ships that would take them to the treasure troves of metals and other elements in orbit beyond the homeworld’s atmosphere. The H’rulka had gone from being essentially atechnic to a star-faring species themselves within the space of twelve-cubed gnyii, the twitch of a minor tentacle, so far as the Masters were concerned.

      Ordered Ascent wondered, and not for the first time, why the Masters insisted on suppressing technological advancement throughout the entourage of species they’d brought into the embrace of their feeder nets. The H’rulka had come so far; their combat advantage over these vermin would have been that of the windstorm to the foodfloater, had they been permitted to keep developing their technology.

      No matter. The advantage was sufficient.

      Ordered Ascent checked other data feeds. Ship 434 was ready to diverge, if necessary, and would be ready to enter metaspace within mere vu.

      Any damage done to the enemy was to the good. So long as combat didn’t weaken Warship 434 or threaten her mission, there was no reason not to swat the vermin before they were even close enough to engage.

      “Swift Pouncer,” Ordered Ascent said, “destroy those that we can reach.”

      “With the pleasure of gentle winds, Ordered Ascent.”

      And Warship 434 reached out into the darkness. …

      TC/USNA DD Symmons

       Cis-Lunar Space, Sol System

       1536 hours, TFT

      Captain Harry Vanderkamp, commanding the Symmons, watched the tactical display unfolding around him as the ship plunged toward the interloper. The alien ship was accelerating fast, pulling at least seven hundred gravities, and would slip beyond range soon.

      Symmons was a member of CBG–18, a fleet destroyer 576 meters long, massing just under thirty thousand tons, and armed with a variety of weapons, including thirty-six launch tubes for VG–24 Mamba smart missiles, variable-yield ship killers ranging between twenty and forty-five kilotons apiece. The H’rulka vessel was 327,000 kilometers ahead now, out of range for most guided weapons, but still within reach of the Mambas.

      The problem, though, was that Symmons did not yet have clearance to fire. The ship ahead had clearly been identified as H’rulka, an enemy combatant … but it had been twelve years since the single known encounter between them and Confederation vessels, and Vanderkamp knew he would need clearance from Fleet HQ. There might be diplomatic issues of which he was unaware, or an attempt under way to communicate with the alien.

      Symmons had burned repeated laser and radio messages to Fleet Base, only a few light seconds away, but so far with no response.

      His gut instinct was to fire. That H’rulka monster might be a recon probe in advance of a larger force.

      The